An idea born in unsettled times becomes a feat of engineering excellence. The most complex machine ever built to bring humans to and from space and eventually construct the next stop on the road to space exploration.
Posts Tagged ‘News’
The Space Shuttle (Narrated by William Shatner)
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011NASA – NASA Announces New Homes for Space Shuttle Orbiters After Retirement
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011Source – NASA Announces New Homes for Space Shuttle Orbiters After Retirement.
NASA Announces New Homes for Space Shuttle Orbiters After Retirement 04.12.11
After 30 years of spaceflight, more than 130 missions, and numerous science and technology firsts, NASA’s space shuttle fleet will retire and be on display at institutions across the country to inspire the next generation of explorers and engineers.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday announced the facilities where four shuttle orbiters will be displayed permanently at the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program.
Shuttle Enterprise, the first orbiter built, will move from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York.
The Udvar-Hazy Center will become the new home for shuttle Discovery, which retired after completing its 39th mission in March.
Shuttle Endeavour, which is preparing for its final flight at the end of the month will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
Shuttle Atlantis, which will fly the last planned shuttle mission in June, will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex in Florida.
“We want to thank all of the locations that expressed an interest in one of these national treasures,” Bolden said. “This was a very difficult decision, but one that was made with the American public in mind. In the end, these choices provide the greatest number of people with the best opportunity to share in the history and accomplishments of NASA’s remarkable Space Shuttle Program. These facilities we’ve chosen have a noteworthy legacy of preserving space artifacts and providing outstanding access to U.S. and international visitors.”
NASA also announced that hundreds of shuttle artifacts have been allocated to museums and education institutions.
Various shuttle simulators for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum of McMinnville, Ore., and Texas A&M’s Aerospace Engineering Department
Full fuselage trainer for the Museum of Flight in Seattle
Nose cap assembly and crew compartment trainer for the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio
Flight deck pilot and commander seats for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
Orbital maneuvering system engines for the U.S. Space and Rocket Center of Huntsville, Ala., National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum
NASA – Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011Source – : NASA – Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space.
April 12 was already a huge day in space history twenty years before the launch of the first shuttle mission. On that day in 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (left, on the way to the launch pad) became the first human in space, making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. Newspapers like The Huntsville Times (right) trumpeted Gagarin’s accomplishment.
Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space less than a month later.
The first cooperative human space flight project between the United States and the Soviet Union took place in 1975. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was designed to test the compatibility of rendezvous and docking systems for American and Soviet spacecraft and to open the way for future joint manned flights.
Since 1993, the U.S. and Russia have worked together on a number of other space flight projects. The Space Shuttle began visiting the Russian Mir space station in 1994, and in 1995 Norm Thagard became the first U.S. astronaut to take up residency on Mir. Seven U.S. astronauts served with their Russian counterparts aboard the orbiting Mir laboratory from 1995 to 1998. The experience gained from the Mir cooperative effort, as well as lessons learned, paved the way for the International Space Station.
In-orbit construction on the Station began in November 1998, and it has been staffed non-stop with international crews since November 2000. The first Station crew, made up of U.S. commander Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, was launched on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The crew returned to Earth on the Space Shuttle Discovery in March 2001.
Astronomers Find Coldest Star in the Universe
Thursday, March 24th, 2011The MESSENGER probe enters orbit around the innermost planet on March 17th
Thursday, March 17th, 2011Source – NASA: NASA Science News for March 15, 2011
It’s not easy to visit Mercury, but NASA is about to settle in for a long stay. The MESSENGER probe enters orbit around the innermost planet on March 17th.
Super Full Moon March 19, 2011
Thursday, March 17th, 2011Source – NASA: NASA Science News for March 16, 2011
On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It’s a super “perigee moon”–the biggest in almost 20 years.
What’s Up for March? Solar & Mercury views!
Saturday, March 5th, 2011This month, the Messenger spacecraft gets into orbit around Mercury on the 18th, and you can see the swift planet in the evening skies,too! Meanwhile, celebrate Sun-Earth day on the 19th, and view the sun through solar safe telescopes.
Can WISE Find the Hypothetical ‘Tyche’?
Saturday, February 19th, 2011Source – JPL/NASA: Earth-Size Planet Candidates Found in Habitable Zone
02.18.11
In November 2010, the scientific journal Icarus published a paper by astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, who proposed the existence of a binary companion to our sun, larger than Jupiter, in the long-hypothesized “Oort cloud” — a faraway repository of small icy bodies at the edge of our solar system. The researchers use the name “Tyche” for the hypothetical planet. Their paper argues that evidence for the planet would have been recorded by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).
WISE is a NASA mission, launched in December 2009, which scanned the entire celestial sky at four infrared wavelengths about 1.5 times. It captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets relatively close to Earth. Recently, WISE completed an extended mission, allowing it to finish a complete scan of the asteroid belt, and two complete scans of the more distant universe, in two infrared bands. So far, the mission’s discoveries of previously unknown objects include an ultra-cold star or brown dwarf, 20 comets, 134 near-Earth objects (NEOs), and more than 33,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Following its successful survey, WISE was put into hibernation in February 2011. Analysis of WISE data continues. A preliminary public release of the first 14 weeks of data is planned for April 2011, and the final release of the full survey is planned for March 2012.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: When could data from WISE confirm or rule out the existence of the hypothesized planet Tyche?
A: It is too early to know whether WISE data confirms or rules out a large object in the Oort cloud. Analysis over the next couple of years will be needed to determine if WISE has actually detected such a world or not. The first 14 weeks of data, being released in April 2011, are unlikely to be sufficient. The full survey, scheduled for release in March 2012, should provide greater insight. Once the WISE data are fully processed, released and analyzed, the Tyche hypothesis that Matese and Whitmire propose will be tested.
Q: Is it a certainty that WISE would have observed such a planet if it exists?
A: It is likely but not a foregone conclusion that WISE could confirm whether or not Tyche exists. Since WISE surveyed the whole sky once, then covered the entire sky again in two of its infrared bands six months later, WISE would see a change in the apparent position of a large planet body in the Oort cloud over the six-month period. The two bands used in the second sky coverage were designed to identify very small, cold stars (or brown dwarfs) — which are much like planets larger than Jupiter, as Tyche is hypothesized to be.
Q: If Tyche does exist, why would it have taken so long to find another planet in our solar system?
A: Tyche would be too cold and faint for a visible light telescope to identify. Sensitive infrared telescopes could pick up the glow from such an object, if they looked in the right direction. WISE is a sensitive infrared telescope that looks in all directions.
Q: Why is the hypothesized object dubbed “Tyche,” and why choose a Greek name when the names of other planets derive from Roman mythology?
A: In the 1980s, a different companion to the sun was hypothesized. That object, named for the Greek goddess “Nemesis,” was proposed to explain periodic mass extinctions on the Earth. Nemesis would have followed a highly elliptical orbit, perturbing comets in the Oort Cloud roughly every 26 million years and sending a shower of comets toward the inner solar system. Some of these comets would have slammed into Earth, causing catastrophic results to life. Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals. Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed. However, it is still possible that the sun could have a distant, unseen companion in a more circular orbit with a period of a few million years — one that would not cause devastating effects to terrestrial life. To distinguish this object from the malevolent “Nemesis,” astronomers chose the name of Nemesis’s benevolent sister in Greek mythology, “Tyche.”
JPL manages and operates the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA’s Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise, http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise .
Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
2011
NASA Hosting Events for Valentine’s Night Comet Encounter
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011News release: 2011-044B Feb. 08, 2011
NASA Hosting Events for Valentine’s Night Comet Encounter
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-044b&cid=release_2011-044b
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA will host several live activities for the Stardust-NExT mission’s close encounter with comet Tempel 1. The closest approach is expected at approximately 8:37 p.m. PST (11:37 p.m. EST) on Feb. 14, with confirmation received on Earth at about 8:56 p.m. PST (11:56 p.m. EST).
Live coverage of the Tempel 1 encounter will begin at 8:30 p.m. PST on Feb. 14 on NASA Television and the agency’s website. The coverage will include live commentary from mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and video from Lockheed Martin Space System’s mission support area in Denver.
Live coverage of a news briefing is planned for 10 a.m. PST on Feb. 15. Scheduled participants are:
– Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, Washington
– Joe Veverka, Stardust-NExT principal investigator, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
– Tim Larson, Stardust-NExT project manager, JPL
– Don Brownlee, Stardust-NExT co-investigator, University of Washington, Seattle
Mission coverage schedule (all times PST and subject to change):
– 8:30 to 10 p.m., Feb. 14: Live NASA TV commentary begins from mission control; includes coverage of closest approach and the re-establishment of contact with the spacecraft following the encounter.
– Midnight to 1:30 a.m., Feb. 15: NASA TV commentary will chronicle the arrival and processing of the first five of 72 close-approach images the team expects to be downlinked after the encounter. The images are expected to include a close-up view of the comet’s surface.
– 10 a.m., Feb. 15: News briefing
– Starting on Feb. 9, NASA TV will air Stardust-NExT mission animation and other video during its Video File segments. For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .
– Commentary and the news conference will also be carried live on one of JPL’s Ustream channels. During events, viewers can engage in a real-time chat and submit questions to the Stardust-NExT team at: http://www.ustream.tv/user/NASAJPL2 .
The public can watch a real-time animation of the Stardust-NExT comet flyby using NASA’s new “Eyes on the Solar System” Web tool. JPL created this 3-D environment, which allows people to explore the solar system from their computers. It is available at: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes .
This flyby of Tempel 1 will give scientists an opportunity to look for changes on the comet’s surface since it was visited by NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft in July 2005. Since then, Tempel 1 has completed one orbit of the sun, and scientists are looking forward to monitoring any differences in the comet.
During its 12 years in space, Stardust became the first spacecraft to collect samples of a comet (Wild 2 in 2004), which were delivered to Earth in 2006 for study. The Stardust-NExT mission is managed by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft and manages day-to-day mission operations.
A press kit and other detailed information about Stardust-NExT is available at: http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov .
DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
Blaine Friedlander 607-254-6235
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
bpf2@cornell.edu
