The Great Beyond

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has sent back its first pictures since it went into orbit round the Moon.

“Our first images were taken along the moon’s terminator – the dividing line between day and night – making us initially unsure of how they would turn out,” says Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. principal investigator for the probe’s camera (press release).

“Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972.”

The pictures, he says, show that LRO is nearly ready to get on with its mission of looking for potential landing sites and resources for any future return of humans to the Moon.

More
New focus on the Moon – Arizona State
Hi def Moon shots from 2007 Japanese Moon mission – The Great Beyond
From 2008: a newly processed 42-year-old Moon image taken in 1966 by the Lunar Orbiter 1 (LO1) – The Great Beyond

Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University

Posted by Daniel Cressey on July 03, 2009
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Phoenix has been incommunicado since the end of October, the Mars mission ending just before a shell of carbon dioxide ice would entomb the three-legged lander. But the legacy of this little lander that sort of could keeps on living. A suite of papers published today in Science rounds up the lander's greatest hits, all of which had been published as the mission went along. In summary:

Continue reading "Phoenix: A life" »

Posted by Eric Hand on July 02, 2009
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NASA has finally worked out how to put fuel in the tank of its space shuttle.

After multiple launch attempts for Endeavour were abandoned due to hydrogen fuel leaking from the external tank the space agency announced that yesterday’s 'tanking test' has been successful.

“There were absolutely no leak indications whatsoever noted on the two leak detectors,” says Launch Director Pete Nickolenko (statement).

“We’ll continue to look at the data, and our next step is to move toward launch.”

All this should mean that Endeavour is good to go on 11 July. As CNET notes though, all this faffing with the fuel means NASA has only a four day window to launch, before having to delay to 27 July in order to make way for a Russian space station resupply mission launch on the 24th.

More coverage
NASA: Fuel test a success, shuttle launch day set – AP
No leaks in Endeavour's fuel tank: NASA – AFP
Shuttle ready for launch after fuel tests, NASA says – Xinhua

Image: work on the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate of the external fuel tank, suspected source of the fuel leak, on 24 June / NASA - Jack Pfaller

Posted by Daniel Cressey on July 02, 2009
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Sea Launch, the imaginatively named company that launches rockets from the sea, says it will continue its “normal business operations” despite filing for bankruptcy last week.

The company told Satellite Today it will be almost-business-as-usual while it goes through Chapter 11 restructuring in the US.

Continue reading "Sea Launch is sinking" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 30, 2009
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After several cases where reports of its death were much exaggerated, the Ulysses space probe is to finally cease operations.

Exactly when is not entirely clear, as NASA says it will tell the probe to turn off its transmitter on “Monday, June 30”. Whenever Ulysses is actually put down, it deserves a round of applause, having spent over 18 years in space.

The old voyager has been on a strange orbit, speeding past the Sun’s poles three times to help researchers puzzle out the mysteries of the solar wind. As the European Space Agency, a partner with NASA on the mission, says, it has defied “several earlier expectations of its demise”, including a couple from Nature (see: Closer than ever to the Sun).

“We expected the spacecraft to cease functioning much earlier,” says Paolo Ferri, of ESA’s European Space Operations Centre. “Its longevity is a tribute to Ulysses’s builders and the people involved in operations over the years.”

Sadly though the scientific return on investment no longer justifies keeping Ulysses running. On the bright side, Richard Marsden, ESA’s Ulysses mission manager, notes that the probe will in effect become a man-made comet.

“Whenever any of us look up in the years to come, Ulysses will be there, silently orbiting our star, which it studied so successfully during its long and active life,” he tells MSNBC.

Headline watch
Ulysses Hears the Siren's Song – NASA press release
Light goes out on solar mission – BBC
After 19 years, Ulysses solar probe to go dark – AP
Tales of brave Ulysses – Christian Science Monitor

Image: NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 29, 2009
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NASA has announced a ‘Tanking Test’ for next week Wednesday to see if it has managed to repair a hydrogen leak that scuppered its two most recent attempts to launch the space shuttle Endeavour.

Crew at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are still working on a plate attached to the shuttle’s external fuel tank, pinpointed as the source of the leak in a line that vents hydrogen from the tank. Seals on the ‘Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate’ were due to be inspected yesterday.

“They think they have a pretty good handle on what they think caused the leak,” says NASA spokesperson Candrea Thomas (SPACE.com). “The tanking test will tell, but they’re confident they’ve got this thing figured out.”

The next launch attempt is scheduled for 11 July.

Meanwhile, CNET News reports a different problem with another shuttle. A loose knob on shuttle Atlantis has become wedged against a window and engineers are struggling to remove it:

While the knurled knob is pressing against the pane in two locations, it's not yet clear whether the glass has suffered any measurable damage. But access is tight and engineers considering removal options must make sure they don't inadvertently damage the glass. Replacing a pressure pane, one official said, could take months because part of the cockpit instrumentation would have to be moved or disconnected to provide clearance.

Image: NASA staff work on the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate / NASA, Jack Pfaller

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 26, 2009
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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has reached the Moon.

“I am now 450km above the moon....” said the probe’s Twitter feed at 11.00 UK time today.

Minutes later it noted, “The moon has capture me! I am there! :-) … I am now in orbit about the moon!! :-)”.

LRO is orbiting; now let's have some recon! Perhaps someone should also update the feed’s location information so it no longer says ‘Greenbelt, MD’. (For more on LRO see Nature: Moon mission tackles water question.)

“The engines have been burning now for 15, 20 minutes,” Mike Wargo, NASA’s chief lunar scientist, told NASA TV just moments ago. “We’ve been captured stably by the moon. We’re there.”

Later today you can watch live video of the lunar swingby of sister mission LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite), live from 2:10 pm GMT. Till then, here’s a video of the takeoff of both LCROSS and LRO (hat tip: Bad Astronomy).

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 23, 2009
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Late Friday afternoon, NASA announced the winners to its most recent competition in the "small explorer" or SMEX programme, which is a chance for principal investigators, often from universities, to offer up their bold new ideas and have NASA pay for their chance to be in charge.
After a year-long competition among six finalists -- which had themselves been winnowed down from 32 -- NASA picked two. The first, called Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), will use an ultraviolet solar telescope to study the chromosphere, a thin and poorly understood layer of the Sun's atmosphere just above its surface. It is led by Alan Title, of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California.
The second, called Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX (GEMS), will measure the polarization of X-rays emanating from black holes and neutron stars and use this to build a picture of the way these objects distort matter and space with their intense gravitational and magnetic fields. It is led by Jean Swank, of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The missions each will receive $105 million, plus the use of a launch vehicle. IRIS could launch by the end of 2012, while both are supposed to launch by 2015.
I'm sure they are stellar proposals, no pun intended, with rock-solid science potential. But I think it's fair to say that finding another Earth outside our solar system is a far cry more sexy than most heliophysics missions. And among the missing in the final cut was the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a favorite among certain blogs and even our editor here at Nature. It would have found extrasolar Earths that CoRoT and Kepler will miss, and ones close enough to home to be meaningfully followed up by the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope. As Centauri Dreams blog said, "From the PR perspective, TESS was a gold-plated winner."

Posted by Eric Hand on June 22, 2009
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NASA's return to the Moon is off and running. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite both rode into the sky over Cape Canaveral, Florida,aboard an Atlas V rocket on 18 June. The threat of thunderstorms had the launch in question right up until the very end, but conditions were declared 'green' with less than 30 minutes remaining.

LRO is now heading directly to the moon, and expected to reach it on Tuesday. LCROSS is in a looping orbit around Earth that will send it plunging into a crater near the moon's south pole on 9 October, to look for water ice. If you can't wait until then for your lunar south pole action, check out a gorgeous new composite map of the south pole craters available here.

The Twitter feed of Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center, is always good for moon gossip -- including the Russian vodka on tap at the post-launch party.

Image: NASA

Posted by Alex Witze on June 19, 2009
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Things are very quiet on the surface of the Sun just now… a little too quiet. Normally, the surface of the sun is covered "sun spots," areas of magnetic activity that are usually accompanied by flares and "coronal mass ejections," giant streams of material that can seriously disrupt life on earth.

Lately there's not much happening over on good old Sol. For the past few years we've been in a "solar minimum"—a period of reduced activity. Most people expected that the minimum would end last year, but it seems to be stretching on longer than expected.

Now a group of scientists at the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona think that they've finally figured out why. Using long-term observations from the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) facility, the team was able to watch an east-to-west jet stream some 1,000-7,000 km below the sun's surface. They presented their results at the Solar Physics Division meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

The jet stream has moved sluggishly from the polar regions of the sun to the equator, and that's delayed the onset of the latest solar cycle. Soon however that may all change—the scientists believe that the jet stream has reached a critical point where it can rekindle sunspots and start the cycle anew. So keep an eye on our nearest star, but please remember not to stare at the Sun directly.

Image: SOHO/Nasa

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on June 17, 2009
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Cross-post from In The Field:

Nature News twitters the Apollo 11 moon mission as it happened -- 40 years on. Followers can read about technical milestones, political challenges, and related events in the space race starting today, just over a month before the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing.

The Tweets, located at http://twitter.com/ApolloPlus40, will follow Apollo 11’s crew to the moon and back, and taper off during the weeks following the mission to give followers the context surrounding the moon mission and its fallout for science and the wider world. Accompanying information will also be available on our In The Field blog.

Photo: NASA

Reformatted after original posting.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 17, 2009
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NASA has abandoned its attempt to launch the shuttle Endeavour today after another hydrogen leak.

A 13 June launch attempt was called off for the same reason.

“We’re going to step back and figure out what the problem is and go fix it,” says Space Shuttle Program Manager LeRoy Cain. “Once we get it fixed and we’re confident that we have a solution that’s going to work and allow us to go fly safely, then we'll proceed forward.”

At the moment the next launch attempt is scheduled for 11 July. All eyes are now on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which is being wheeled out today for a launch tomorrow atop an Atlas V rocket.

On his twitter feed, Endeavour mission commander Mark Polansky says, “I’m sure you all know that we postponed again. It’s a reminder that spaceflight is NOT routine. We will fly home to Houston this morning.”

Image: the Ground Umbilical Carrier Panel area on space shuttle Endeavour's external fuel tank, site of the hydrogen leaks / NASA TV

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 17, 2009
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I really hope the New York Times fact checkers did their job on this one*. This has to be true: Buzz Aldrin is to appear in a rap video with Snoop Dogg.

Astronaut and Moon-walker Aldrin told the Times, “I just did a rap session with Snoop Dogg and a rap composition called 'Rocket Experience'. It’s going to be an online video.

“… I relate. It’s not singing, it’s rapping.”

Hopefully this rap, when released, will prove good enough to add to our Moon Songs Hall of Fame. As one commenter on the BoingBoing website so eloquently puts it: “Snoop D-O-double-G up in the hizzle with Bizzle Adrizzle, fo' shizzle.”

Another highlight from the brilliant interview:

NYT: Was your mother’s maiden name really Marion Moon?
BA: Yes. I didn’t feel NASA needed to know that. Somebody would think I was trying to get favoured treatment because my ancestors had the name Moon. And that’s a joke.

* And I’m suspicious, as the piece states “A version of this article appeared in print on June 21, 2009.”

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 16, 2009
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NASA abandoned its plan to launch the space shuttle Endeavour on Saturday after a hydrogen leak.

“Managers met Sunday afternoon to evaluate how repairs are going and assess when Endeavour’s next launch attempt will be,” the agency said in a statement. “The earliest the shuttle could be ready for liftoff is June 17, however there is a conflict on that date with the scheduled launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.”

The Houston Chronicle thinks the smart money is on a launch attempt on the 17th, as this would then allow the lunar mission to launch on the 19th or 20th. “If the opportunities were reversed, and the lunar orbiter launched Wednesday, the time requirements to reconfigure the launch range for the shuttle are longer, and Endeavour would have only one day, June 20, to attempt a launch,” the paper points out.

USA Today adds that all the launch pad gridlock is starting to cost NASA serious money, as the agency has to keep workers on contract for longer than originally planned.

Image: Endeavour ready for launch on 12 June / NASA/Jim Grossmann

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 15, 2009
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Pack your bags and head for the hills. The end is near. That's what you might be led to believe if you read one of the many reports out today about a paper in Nature. A duo of French researchers has modeled the future of the solar system. They've shown that chaotic gravitational perturbations could lead Mercury to swing out of its normal orbit, and that in turn could cause Venus or Mars to smash into the Earth.

"Could" is the operative word here: the chances of it actually happening stand at well under 1%. There's no way to improve the odds because of the chaotic nature of the model, but whatever the outcome, don't panic. Any collision that might occur will happen over three billion years from now.

You can listen to an interview with one of the authors, Jacques Laskar, on this week's Nature Podcast.

Image: IMCCE-CNRS

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on June 11, 2009
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Kaguya, Japan's lunar orbiter, has concluded its mission with a concussion. The mission, which created a new set of gravity maps and also mapped the surface in HDTV, was scheduled to crash at 3:25 am local time in Japan, or 2:25 pm Eastern Daylight Time today in the US. Telescopes across Asia and Australia peered into night-time skies for a glimpse of the impact. The expected site, at 80 degrees east longitude and 66 degrees south in latitude, is shown here, as mapped by the European Space Agency's SMART-1 satellite, which itself fell to its end in 2006.
But Kaguya's crash heralds a much bigger one yet to come -- one that may turn up water along with dust. On Thursday, NASA is set to launch Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter along with its sister mission, LCROSS. In the autumn, that mission will send a 2,300 impactor -- an empty rocket stage -- into the shadowed parts of craters near the south pole where some scientists suspect ice may persist.
Image: ESA/SMART-1/Space-X

Posted by Eric Hand on June 10, 2009
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Betelgeuse is shrinking! Could it be about to go supernova? Reports from the American Astronomical Society meeting in Pasadena, California this week suggest that over the past 15 years the bright red star has shrunk by 15%. (Press release)

Wowsers.

These long-term observations were made by nearly-94-year old Nobel laureate Charles Townes and his colleagues, at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory.

The star is no dimmer than it has been over the time they’ve been looking at it, and the reasons for the shrinkage have so far eluded the team. "We do not know why the star is shrinking," says team member Edward Wishnow. "Considering all that we know about galaxies and the distant universe, there are still lots of things we don't know about stars, including what happens as red giants near the ends of their lives."

So far, so confusing. Few reports offer much explanation. The Register says the shrinking, seen by some including Townes as possible first signs of the star collapsing into a supernova, will be of most concern to fans of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: the red star was home to Zaphod Beeblebrox. “Fans will be hoping that the recent shrinkage of Zaphod's sun doesn't mean that, in fact, his homeworld was destroyed hundreds of years before Earth's abrupt demolition to allow construction of a hyperspace bypass,” says the Register’s Lewis Page.

Over at New Scientist, we can find more in way of clarification. Townes tells them: “Maybe there's some instability in the star and it's going to collapse or at least go way down in size or blow off some material, but who knows.” Other astronomers polled for their opinions offer pulsations as a cause of the diminishment, or perhaps that the wonky star was just being looked at from a funny angle. "Often if you look at the simulations, the star is not spherical. It looks like a bad potato," Graham Harper from the University of Colorado in Boulder told New Scientist.

Image: NASA

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on June 10, 2009
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NASA’s human spaceflight budget request was recently cut from $4 billion to $3.3 billion
by the House Appropriations Committee, and Florida congressmen are not pleased.

President Obama’s budget request was down-sized by the committee’s commerce, justice, science subcommittee in what the subcommittee chair Alan Mollohan described as a “time-out” until the Augustine panel reaches its conclusions.

Florida congresspersons Suzanne Kosmas and Bill Posey have written a letter to the committee expressing their concern, in particular for the workforce that is gearing up to provide us with space rockets. “I appreciate the desire to wait for recommendations from the Augustine Panel, but cutting funds in the meantime sends the wrong message and increases the risk of losing a professional workforce that may not be easily reassembled for future programs,” says Kosmas. (Press release). The letter says that tens of thousands of jobs are at risk.

eWeek.com runs the news of the move by the committee under the headline “Lawmakers slash NASA’s manned space flight budget”. We will have to wait and see how much more back and forth there is until the Augustine panel report, and the budget is finally set.

Image: NASA

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on June 09, 2009
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NASA employees’ scored a victory this week in their struggle against background checks they regard as hugely intrusive.

Lawyers for those complaining about the Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12 checks (better known as HSPD 12) welcomed a ruling by the court of appeal in favour of employees at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the ongoing arcane legal wrangling.

Back in 2007 JPL employees took NASA to court over the checks, which could include information health, mental state and sexual histories. An injunction was granted blocking new HSPD-12 checks.

Yesterday’s ruling denied an attempt by the Department of Justice to have the case considered en banc. En banc hearings involve a larger panel of judges.

One of the judges who did back an en banc hearing said it would “clear the brush” that has built up as different bits of the American legal system kick the case back and forth.

Continue reading "NASA background checks court fight continues" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 05, 2009
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NASA has announced that the next shuttle mission has been scheduled to launch at 7.17 AM eastern time on 13 June.

Mission STS-127 will install a ‘porch-in-space’ on the International Space Station, part of the Japanese Kibo science experiment module. This will allow astronauts to expose experiments to the harsh conditions outside the space station. The mission will also install a robotic arm to help move experiments around.

“Folks have done a tremendous job getting ready to go fly again,” says Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Space Operations. “It will be a very challenging mission.”

Image: STS-127 mission patch: "Bathed in sunlight, the blue Earth is represented without boundaries to remind us that we all share this world. In the center, the golden flight path of the space shuttle turns into the three distinctive rays of the astronaut symbol culminating in the star-like emblem characteristic of the Japanese Space Agency, yet soaring further into space as it paves the way for future voyages and discoveries for all humankind." / NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 04, 2009
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The fate of NASA is in their hands. Well, maybe it's not that drastic -- but it's true that everyone is wondering what will come of the review of NASA's human spaceflight programme, ordered by President Barack Obama. NASA announced the members of the 10-person panel on Monday. Part of the allure -- if a report-making committee ever really sparkles -- is that it is being chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine who, of course, has built a sort of cottage industry around his report-making committees, such as the National Academies' "Rising Above the Gathering Storm".
The panel balances aerospace experts and astronauts alongside two scientists. One is Princeton University's Chris Chyba, who, in addition to his work on exobiology, has also gotten involved in test ban treaty work, and is a member of Obama's council of science advisers. Another is Charles Kennel, who used to run NASA's Earth science programme, and at one point was a name mentioned for administrator.
Some have said this review isn't all that big of a deal -- just a way for the Obama administration to lay claim to the space programme, to give it its imprimatur. Others think that the committee could end up tinkering with the mantra of the Bush-era Vision -- Moon, then Mars -- to include things like near-Earth asteroids. More drastic would be a re-think of the Constellation architecture, the new moon ships. If they decide to question the approach taken with the Ares 1 rockets, then the billions spent by former Administrator Mike Griffin -- who was determined to retire the Shuttle and move on to something -- may have been for naught.
Oh -- if you want to submit your own comments, panel member and former astronaut Leroy Chiao has already tweeted that he wants to hear from you.

Posted by Eric Hand on June 02, 2009
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As the Apollo moon landings chalk up their 40th anniversary, astronauts have been given a glamour shot. Louis Vuitton, he of the handbags, has in his latest ad campaign shots of Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, Jim Lovell who guided a faulty Apollo 13 back to Earth and Sally Ride who was the first American woman in space, on the Challenger shuttle in 1983.

LV’s head of communications, Antoine Arnault, says "With this latest impressive execution of the award-winning Core Values campaign, Louis Vuitton and its advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather have proved their ability to push the boundaries once again.”

Yes indeed, and Antoine goes on: “Space represents the final frontier, and the Moon is the destination beyond which no man has yet travelled."

The photos are snapped by photographer Annie Leibovitz and will be accompanied by a website and filmed interviews with the three astronauts, to “discuss how the experience of space changed their lives, offering a fascinating insight into Annie Leibovitz's print visual.” (press release). I’m still searching for the luxury luggage link, anyone else who can read through the press release and find one, please let me know.

Also, apparently ol’ Louis is donating “a significant portion” of the astronauts’ fees to Al Gore’s The Climate Project on behalf of the three astronauts. I wonder whether they got paid as much as supermodels do? Would Buzz Aldrin even wake up for less than $10,000?

Again, I’m not sure what this has to do with handbags. Maybe in future as astronauts enter the shuttle, or whatever vessel hoiks them up to space next, we’ll see them carry onboard their toothbrushes in little goodie bags emblazoned with the famous LV logo.

Image: Louis Vuitton

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on June 02, 2009
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Exoplaneteers have finally succeeded in using a technique called astrometry to spot a far off planet.

Astrometry measures the change in the star’s position from side to side, brought about by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet. It was first used 50 years ago, and almost came up with a planet in 1963 when astronomer Peter van der Kamp claimed, in error, that he’d found two planets going round Barnard’s star.

But now, after 12 years of observation, Steven Pravdo and Stuart Shaklan from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have spotted a planet like Jupiter, but heavier, around the small star VB10 about 20 light years away.

The star is the smallest known to host a planet, and the astronomers say that such a system might be a good place to look for Earth-like planets.

“This method is optimal for finding solar-system configurations like ours that might harbor other Earths," says Pravdo (press release). "Some other exoplanets around larger M-dwarf stars are also similar to our Jupiter, making the stars fertile ground for future Earth searches," says Shaklan. "Astrometry is best suited to find cold Jupiters around all kinds of stars, and thus to find more planetary systems arranged like our home," he adds.

Pickup so far includes UPI.com and New Scientist. None of these has any comment from exoplanet scientists that favour other techniques, but perhaps one of these stories in languages other than English will have something that I have missed: Nouvel Obs, Wissenschaft aktuell, ADN.es.

Image: Artists impression of VB10 and VB10b, NASA/JPL-Caltech

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on May 29, 2009
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Forget Galaxy Zoo and SETI@Home – using Google Earth you can now choose potential sites on Mars for a space-based camera to snap and send directly to you.

The latest upgrade to Google Earth 5.0 includes a collaboration with the scientists that run the THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System) infrared camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter.

They have developed software that shows where THEMIS will be flying over in the coming week or so, and using Google Earth you can pick out a site that you would particularly like to see photographed. If your choice matches with the mission scientists’ choice, they send you an email and a link to the data as soon as it’s zoomed back to Earth.

To do this you need Google Earth 5.0 and a file that is updated each week giving the spacecraft’s Mars orbital groundtrack, which is available from Arizona State University.

“We wanted to give the general public a way to suggest places on Mars for THEMIS to photograph,” says Philip Christensen, THEMIS’ principal investigator.

So hop to it! And if anyone gets their own Mars image in their inbox anytime soon, do let us know. Here in the Nature News office we're about to make our own suggestions and will keep you posted.

Image: Martian dust storm, NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on May 29, 2009
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Over on space.com, there's one of those stories that's just so crazy that it must be true. A team of Romanians are planning on going to the moon… in a balloon.

There are so many places I could take this. Let's stick to the facts: The Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA), a non profit organization dedicated to space flight, is shooting for the final frontier on a shoestring. They can't afford costly launch pads and first stages, so they're trying to get a boost into orbit from a high altitude balloon. The balloon carries their rocket (which looks weirdly like a Constantin Brâncuşi sculpture, see below) to 18 km. Then the rocket will fire, and woosh! Off it goes to the moon.

Left to right: modernist Romanian sculpture, moon rocket

This may sound, um, completely insane. But it's not completely insane. A quick search of Encyclopedia Astronautica reveals that NASA experimented with balloon-launched sounding rockets in the 1950s. They were especially favored by the famous planetary scientist James Van Allen, who called them "Rockoons". Rockoons were a hit for a while, but they fell out of favor for a couple of reasons. First, they were difficult to control. Second, if something in the balloon failed, or if the rocket was deployed too early, those below had to watch out for a giant falling tube of rocket fuel.

Continue reading "Romania's moon balloon" »

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on May 28, 2009
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The three astronauts that recently left our planet to hang around in orbit on the International Space Station will double the crew’s size. Once Belgian Frank De Winne, Russian Roman Romanenko and Canadian Robert Thirsk arrive on Friday, the crew will total six.

This move from three to six is a “milestone” according to this BBC report, saying that “A primary objective will be to assess how well such a large number of people live together in the cramped confines of the space station.”

It’s been a long time coming; as this story from 2007 reports - only now can the ISS fulfil its scientific potential since it’s on-orbit construction began in 1998.

The lofting of the three astronauts in a Soyuz TMA-15 craft from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, has picked up lots of press attention – Google news search brings up almost 1000, too many to list here, but a few for you to peruse at your pleasure listed here:

Radio Netherlands
CBC
AP
Calgary Herald
Reuters

Image: NASA TV

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on May 27, 2009
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Meanwhile, up on Mars… while Spirit flounces around in the sand, Opportunity is playing the sensible big sister role over at Victoria Crater. Well done Opportunity! You’ve got a paper in Science!

The findings are the result of a daring move by the rover’s handlers on Earth back in September 2007 when they drove Opportunity into Victoria crater, which the rover had been nosing around the rim of for over a year.

And the news from Victoria? Well, the crater’s walls were shaped by water in a way very similar to other craters a few miles away. The implication is that the entire region was shaped by water, long ago, rather than just isolated pockets of water acting locally.

“Given that we've seen the same stuff at places that are miles apart, it is a reasonable conjecture that those processes operated over most of this region," Steve Squyres, rover PI told National Geographic.

The Voice of America goes with a slightly familiar-sounding headline. “NASA scientists find more evidence of water on Mars,” which I’m not convinced is the real story here, although is factual for sure. Squyres pops up again in that story, explaining that water and life don’t necessarily mean a nice place for a day trip with the kids: "I want to stress though that it was a nasty place. You know, we say water but this stuff was more like sulfuric acid. It was very, very salty; it was kind of a more like brine,” he says.

Online NewsHour reminds us just how long the rovers have been up there, five years.

Alongside the discovery that a large region was shaped by water, Opportunity’s travels also revealed that the crater is made from sulphate-rich sedimentary rock, and that on the crater floor are dunes. The evidence for these dunes is “gorgeous, striking” Squyres says.

Perhaps Spirit, who is “Stuck in “insidious invisible rover trap’ on Mars” will welcome a few days out of the limelight to concentrate on the task in hand – becoming unstuck.

Image: False color image of Cape St. Vincent at Victoria Crater, Mars, courtesy of Steven Squyres

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on May 22, 2009
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The first director of the UK’s iconic Jodrell Bank Observatory has claimed that the Soviet Union tried to kill him with one of their own radio telescopes.

Bernard Lovell says he believes the USSR tried to kill him on a visit to a telescope near the Black Sea, possibly because Jodrell Bank was being used to watch for Soviet missile launches.

“They tried to remove from my memory the fact that they had taken me to their own defence nucleus on the Black Sea coast, because they did not want news of what they had brought back to this country,” he said in an interview with the BBC earlier this week. “I was very thankful to see the lights of London on one return.”

“I think they had an extremely powerful transmitter of the type we had on the telescope for planetary research. And the radiation from this telescope here was so dangerous that we would never use it at an elevation below about 15 degrees, [to avoid] endangering people’s brains.”

In the interview Lovell described to the BBC how he was called by the Ministry of Defence after the launch of Spunik and asked to use the telescope at Jodrell Bank to detect missile launches.

See also
Professor Sir Bernard Lovell ‘was target of Cold War assassins’ – Times
Sir Bernard Lovell claims Russians tried to kill him with radiation – Telegraph

Image: archive photo of Bernard Lovell / Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 22, 2009
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Astronauts Drew Feustel and John Grunsfeld, of NASA’s Hubble servicing team, are currently completing their fifth and final spacewalk. If all goes well, at the end of this the space telescope will be in tip-top condition again.

A number of papers note that things have not been going smoothly so far. Yesterday astronauts Mike Massimino and Michael Good were nearly frustrated by a stripped bolt.

Massimino eventually resorted to brute force, or what NASA calls “steps developed quickly at the Goddard Spaceflight Center to carefully bend and break”.

Image: Feustel (left) and Grunsfeld (right) / NASA TV

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 18, 2009
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It’s a busy day for NASA. First up it seems the space agency may finally be getting a new boss (see Bolden tipped for NASA top job, for more on that).

Then there’s the shuttle mission to repair the Hubble telescope. The second of five spacewalks is underway today to swap out old components for new shiny ones to get the telescope back seeing clearly.

NASA has released this rather cool image of the shuttle Atlantis silhouetted against the Sun on Tuesday (photo by NASA/Thierry Legault). More importantly, the first use of Twitter in space has been reported.

Problems with the aging shuttle are also surfacing. NASA says that one of the ‘flash evaporators’ that help cool the shuttle has had to be shut down, although this does not pose “an immediate concern”. This isn’t the first time a shuttle has had this problem either. NASA also says damage one of the shuttle’s wings incurred during launch is no cause for concern (Houston Chronicle).

Once the shuttle and its repair bill is gone, NASA will have another big bill to foot though.

Russia has announced it will be charging America $51 million per return flight for each astronaut that it flies to the space station from 2012, reports Reuters. This is a pretty sharp hike from the $21.8 million that it has charged since 2006 and the $35 million it charges space tourists. No news on how much a one way ticket costs was available.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 15, 2009
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Former astronaut and retired Marine Charles Bolden will likely meet with US President Barack Obama on Monday to discuss taking the helm at NASA, reports NBC. The US space agency has had no clear leadership candidate since Obama's inauguration.

A pair of Air Force generals were under consideration, reports the Wall Street Journal, but one bowed out and members of Congress complained about another because he lacked NASA experience. Bolden, whose name came up in early discussions for the role, flew on 4 shuttle missions in the 1980s and 1990s, including the mission that placed the Hubble space telescope in orbit. He returned to the Marines in 1994, according to his NASA biography.

Bolden was selected in part "because of his earlier space experience and compelling personal story of an African American who rose from humble beginnings to senior military posts," writes the Journal. US Senator and fellow former astronaut Bill Nelson (Democrat, Florida) told NBC that "Charlie's credentials are top-notch." Bolden also has the support of NASA's last administrator Michael Griffin, who stepped down in January. Griffin told NBC that Bolden is "perfect" for the role.

Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on May 15, 2009
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The Hubble servicing mission has been buzzed by debris left over from a 2007 Chinese anti-satellite weapon test. The debris flew within about 2.8 km of the space shuttle Atlantis, which is currently working to install new instruments and gyroscopes on the telescope.

As we noted some months ago, satellite debris is a very real risk for the Hubble servicing mission. The amount of debris in space has increased dramatically over the past few years—first because of the Chinese anti satellite test, and then due to the collision of two satellites in February. Most of that debris is well above the International Space Station, where the shuttle usually travels, but other pieces have entered similar orbits to that of Hubble, which is at a higher altitude.

Shuttle program managers had at first put the risk of a collision at 1 in 185, below the nominal 1 in 200 safety limit. After a more detailed analysis, Nasa's orbital debris revised that downward to 1 in 229, although the portion of the mission that takes place at Hubble altitudes carries a somewhat higher risk.

Nasa is watching the situation carefully with both Air Force and Nasa tracking stations around the globe. They notified the crew that the 10 cm piece of debris would pass by at around 7:30 Eastern Time yesterday.

In this particular case, no evasive action was necessary, and the mission continues apace: astronauts are already undertaking the first spacewalk to rejuvenate the aging telescope (see right).

Image: Nasa

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on May 14, 2009
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The two European spacecraft set to begin their missions today have just been successfully shoved off the planet by an Ariane 5 rocket. Herschel will look at far-infrared signatures of stars as they form, and Planck will be able to claim the title of coldest thing in the galaxy while it maps the cosmic microwave background.

The launch, from Kourou, French Guiana, went off without a hitch and streamed live by the European space agency.

Read more about the missions here and here.

Congratulations ESA and Ariane Space!

Image: ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on May 14, 2009
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Spirit, the Mars rover recently troubled by memory loss, seems to have been trying its hand at wheel spins, but has become stuck in the mud.

The rover was rovering towards a pair of volcanic features named Von Braun and Goddard (Seattle Times) when it hit soft sand. As anyone who has tried to drive a car out of a muddy field will know trying to move often has the opposite effect, and it seems that Spirit’s controllers’ efforts to drive the rover out have actually embedded its five functioning wheels further. In fact the rover might have dug itself in so far that its belly is touching the rocks under the sand.

But at least it means that NASA scientists get a chance to play in a huge sandpit (press release). For the next few weeks, rover scientists are going to try and recreate the ground near Spirit and using a replica rover will try and find some way of manoeuvring the actual rover out of its sticky spot.

Until then, the rover will stay put. In fact, this could turn out to be the ultimate fate for Spirit. “If it is unable to move, Spirit could still perform some science, at least until winter arrives, when the sun is low on the horizon. It just wouldn't be a rover anymore,” the LA Times says.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on May 12, 2009
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This morning the crew of the Shuttle Atlantis woke in space to the dulcet sounds of US band 3 Doors Down performing ‘Kryptonite’. Having recovered from that, they had to get on with the day's tasks of checking the shuttle’s heat shield for damage sustained during yesterday’s launch and getting ready for tomorrow’s rendezvous with the Hubble telescope.

This photo shows the shuttle’s launch reflected in the glasses of NASA Acting Administrator Christopher Scolese (see detail).

For more on the work that this mission will be doing on the super-scope check out NASA’s interactive Hubble repair feature.

See also
Previous Great Beyond posts on this mission.

Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 12, 2009
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As the Space Shuttle Atlantis sits ready on the launch pad for its servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are remembering one instrument that will soon be no more.

The Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) onboard the telescope will soon be decommissioned. Hubble’s team has released one last ‘pretty picture’ from it: planetary nebula Kohoutek 4-55, 4,600 light-years away.

The colours show emission clouds: red = nitrogen, green = hydrogen, and blue = oxygen.

On the Democratic Underground website, 'Shireen' writes:

The last Hubble servicing mission, scheduled to be launched on Monday afternoon, will be bitter-sweet for me. I've worked in WFPC2 technical support for more than 14 years and become very fond of this camera.

WFPC2 was installed in 1993 and will be replaced later this week by the Wide Field Camera III. … But my heart will always be with WFPC2, a very remarkable and resilient camera, built by the good people at the Jet Propulsion Lab.

Image right: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Image left: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 11, 2009
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The world’s future largest ground-based space project has taken a crucial step. The team working on the Atacama Large Millimetre/sub-millimetre Array have successfully linked up two of the 66 dishes that will eventually work as one giant telescope.

ALMA is being built in the Chilean Andes and in 2011 it will begin observations in the millimetre and sub-millimetre wavelengths. On 30 April two of the antennas were synchronised with a precision of one millionth of a millionth of a second.

Without such synchronisation, ALMA will not be able to combine its 66 parts into one giant whole.

“We're very proud and excited to have made this crucial observation, as it proves that the various hardware components work smoothly together,” says Wolfgang Wild, the European ALMA Project Manager (press release). “This brings us another step closer to full operations for ALMA as an astronomical observatory.”

Previous Nature ALMA coverage
First antenna switches on in the Atacama - December 31 2008
Antenna arrives at Atacama array - December 19, 2008

Image: the two antennas / ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 07, 2009
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NASA’s replacement for the space shuttle is in choppy seas at the moment and, for once, this isn’t a metaphor for budget problems.

The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle is undergoing tests in the Atlantic, the first ocean tests of a full size US-spacecraft since the 60s according to Space.com.

Rather than landing like a plane in the fashion of the space shuttle, Orion capsules will splash down in the ocean, so NASA is sea-ing what happens when they’re afloat.

“They're looking for different types of sea conditions so they can report back how the capsule behaves,” NASA spokesperson Amber Philman told Space.com.

Image: NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 28, 2009
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Phew. Spirit, the rover that just kept on truckin’ but then decided to take a break from truckin’ to do some snoozin’, rebootin’ and some forgettin’ has finally started truckin’ again.

The troubled rover, which stopped behaving properly on April 11, was finally deemed safe enough by its Earth-bound controllers, to take a drive on Thursday April 23. It went 1.7 metres.

But things aren’t completely fixed, and the command team is braced for more trouble: “We expect we will see more of the amnesia events, and we want to learn more about them when we do,” said JPL’s Sharon Laubach, chief of the rover sequencing team, which develops and checks each day’s set of commands. (Press release)

To help prevent memory losses infuture, Spirit's daily 'nap' will now happen before it begins to gather data to store it on its RAM drive. This way, if the snooze-resistant flash memory fails again, the team here on Earth will still get daily updates.

The press coverage continues, but there is a sense of the vultures hovering – this slightly good news story failed to gather as much coverage as the news from the past two weeks of Spirit’s failing and ailing. Is news of continued health less immediately interesting to the press? Does a rover have to die to get headlines these days? (Physics Today, MSNBC, Universe Today)

Image the ‘Von Braun’ mound, taken by Spirit on April 8 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on April 27, 2009
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The European Space Agency has unveiled the logo for astronaut Frank De Winne’s tenure in charge of the International Space Station.

The OasISS mission will see De Winne will become the station’s first European commander in October this year. ESA says:

The ISS itself can be considered an oasis in space for its astronauts and cosmonauts, whilst Earth is often referred to as the Blue Planet and represents an oasis for humankind in the Universe.
…
Our planet is shown as a drop of water, resembling Earth as seen by the astronauts on the ISS. The importance of water for life is represented by the tree that grows out of the arms of a man. He is rooted in the Station and its scientific utilisation. Water flows through the man’s arms and the branches of the tree.

However the logo’s giant, glowing, blue man astride the space station causes The Great Beyond to ask whether someone at ESA’s graphic design department has become a tad obsessed with recent movie Watchmen. Based on a 1980’s graphic novel, the movie features a character called Dr Manhattan (picture), a giant, glowing, blue man who decides to leave the Earth.

Coincidence?

Image: ESA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 24, 2009
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If you travel enough that gets to be an oft-heard and much dreaded refrain. But its not just a problem for frequent fliers; it looks like NASA's follow-on to the Space Shuttle, the Orion crew capsule, may also end up overbooked. Planners are now weighing whether to fly the capsule with four seats, instead of the advertised six.

It all comes down to weight: The Orion has to be able to land using just two of its three parachutes. That in turn means that the capsule can weigh no more than 9525 kg (2100 lbs). At present it's within "a couple of hundred pounds" of that weight limit, according to Jeff Hanley, who oversees the Orion's development.

All of this may add to fuel to the efforts of some in Congress to keep the shuttle running past its 2010 retirement date.

Image: NASA

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on April 23, 2009
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Space shuttle Endeavour has been rolled out to the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA says this is likely to be the last time two shuttles are ready to go at the same time.

Endeavour is on stand by in case something goes wrong with shuttle Atlantis’s mission top repair the Hubble Space Telescope. While most shuttle crews can bail out to the International Space Station if something goes wrong, the Hubble mission’s trajectory means the ISS is out of reach (photo detail).

Image: detail photo by from NASA/Kim Shiflett

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 20, 2009
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The Kepler space telescope has taken its first images of the region near the constellation Cygnus which it will scour for planets for at least the next 3 years.

The telescope, which was launched in early March, is designed to observe the same wide field of stars continuously for the length of its mission, providing astronomers with a record of the changes in brightness of 100,000 stars (See: Looking for worlds like this one).

The team selected those stars from the 4.5 million in the telescope's unusually large field of view because they are the likeliest planet hosts based on their size and composition. A narrower field of view might have allowed the astronomers to see more details or stars further away, but Kepler's primary mission is to survey stars for regular slight dips in their brightness, a sign that an orbiting planet is blocking the star's light. Astronomers routinely use small, wide-field telescopes on Earth to detect such dips and find Jupiter-sized planets around other stars, but to enable Kepler to find the even smaller dip from an Earth-sized planet they have launched it above the Earth's atmosphere.

Full images below the fold.

Continue reading "Kepler begins staring contest with Cygnus" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on April 17, 2009
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Twin NASA spacecraft have observed a huge explosion of plasma on the surface of the sun, the first time such a coronal mass ejection has been monitored in 3-D.

These ejections can knock out satellites and power grids if they head towards Earth, as well as triggering the pretty Northern and Southern Lights.

NASA’s two Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (Stereo) craft are in orbit around the Sun, with one ahead and one behind our planet. Their data should help scientists predict when coronal mass ejections will hit us, and how worried we should be.

“Before this unique mission, measurements and the subsequent data of a CME observed near the sun had to wait until the ejections arrived at Earth three to seven days later,” says Angelos Vourlidas, of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington (press release). “Now we can see a CME from the time it leaves the solar surface until it reaches Earth, and we can reconstruct the event in 3D directly from the images.”

The BBC focuses on what all this might mean for Earthlings, in particular for those concerned with satellites. Chris Davis, of mission partner the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, says a forthcoming paper will describe an ejection for which a warning could have been given a full day before.

“That’s ample time to power down a satellite until the worst of the storm has passed; and if you're an astronaut on the space station, you would have had plenty of time to get into an area that has much better shielding,” he says.

Vic Pizzo, of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, told National Geographic, “We always knew if you had two views, you could do a vastly better job [predicting CME impacts]. And that's what they’re getting here.”

Image: artist's impression of one of the Stereo craft imaging a coronal mass ejection / Walt Feimer, NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 15, 2009
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North Korea's April 5 rocket launch has been the cause of much speculation: Was it an attempt to put a satellite into orbit or a test of a ballistic missile? Did it work or didn't it?

The answers to these questions matter, and not just to the analysts over at Arms Control Wonk. Diplomats trying to determine what to do about the Hermit Kingdom must figure out the North's intentions. If the launch was a military test, it would violate a 2006 resolution that was put in place after North Korea tested (kinda) its first nuclear weapon.

Yesterday, the UN Security Council decided that the North's actions were provocative enough to merit condemnation. Today, in an awesomely worded statement, the North announced that it would walk away from six party talks on nuclear disarmament and "bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way."

They also referred to the UN's statement as "brigandish". I'd like to get a gig writing for these guys…

Image: satellite image featuring the rocket launch courtesy of DigitalGlobe

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on April 14, 2009
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Up on Mars, the rover Spirit seems to be either a) in trouble; b) making a bid for freedom or c) infiltrated by our Martian overlords. Over the weekend, NASA reports (press release) that Spirit “apparently rebooted its computer at least twice”. I’m not sure if that should read “Spirit’s computer crashed twice” or not.

The rovers do have a long history of being anthropomorphised, with NASA constantly reporting on their “health” and the things that they are seeing as they travel around Mars.

Indeed the latest news follows in the same ilk; “The rover is in a stable operations state called automode and taking care of itself,” says John Callas, project manager for the rovers. “We are aware of the reality that we have an aging rover, and there may be age-related effects here,” Callas adds.

The story of the beleaguered little rover is doing the rounds (Universe Today, AP, Tech Radar), but today’s thanks go to the Register for pointing out the timeliness of the Rover’s double resurrection. If only I’d thought of that first.

Image: Snapped by Spirit in March, courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on April 14, 2009
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Costing 800 million rubles ($24 m) to design, a new six-seat craft to replace the three-seat Soyuz could take its first flight in 2018.

“Post-Soviet Russia has never had a massive project of this kind,” says Aleksey Krasnov, head of the Roscosmos human spaceflight programme (New Scientist).

The BBC says a number of different versions of the Prospective Piloted Transport System are envisaged, including a six-seat Earth-orbiter, a Moon-capable four-seater, and a cargo version.

“The lunar version of the ship would be capable of flying no less than 200 days in space when docked to a space station in orbit around the Moon,” says the BBC. “… The 200-day mission requirement probably provides some hint about Russian plans to eventually build a permanently occupied lunar outpost, similar to Nasa’s lunar base developed under its Constellation programme.”

Image: “Soyuz 4 Commander Vladimir Shatalov displays how Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 docked in Earth orbit on January 16, 1969.” / NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 06, 2009
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Back in March the powers in charge of the mighty Hubble space telescope let the public vote on what it should take its next pictures of.

The public voted for an interacting pair of spiral galaxies called Arp274 about 400 million light-years away. Unlike NASA, which refused to honour a recent vote on space station names, the Hubble team respected the public vote.

According to the press site:

Arp 274, also known as NGC 5679, is a system of three galaxies that appear to be partially overlapping in the image, although they may be at somewhat different distances. The spiral shapes of two of these galaxies appear mostly intact. The third galaxy (to the far left) is more compact, but shows evidence of star formation.

Two of the three galaxies are forming new stars at a high rate. This is evident in the bright blue knots of star formation that are strung along the arms of the galaxy on the right and along the small galaxy on the left.

See also: A final trip to Hubble - April 01

Image: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 06, 2009
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The NASA inspector general, Robert "Moose" Cobb, has resigned, effective 11 April, succumbing to calls for his head from the halls of Congress. “Mr. Cobb was not up to the job," said the chairman of the House science committee, Bart Gordon, Democrat from Tennessee. It's rare for an agency inspector general to draw attention at all -- they're in the business of pointing out problems, not being a problem -- but Cobb had drawn intense criticism from the GAO, and both sides of the aisle. According to the AP, an ethics council formed during the administration of George W. Bush issued a report saying Cobb abused his authority and didn't appear independent enough. Bush appointed Cobb to his office in 2002, when he had handled ethics issues for the White House.

Posted by Eric Hand on April 03, 2009
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Here is an image that has taken almost a decade to achieve. It's a map of all the galaxies near to us (we're at the centre of the image, naturally).

The image was collated with data from the Six-Degree Field Galaxy Survey (6dFGS) carried out with the 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope in eastern Australia, operated by the Anglo-Australian Observatory and involving scientists from the US, UK and Australia. (published here)

It shows not only the positions of the galaxies, but also their movements.

But hang on, there's a bit missing. Those two blank triangles are there because the Milky Way and all its dust gets in the way. "Sadly we can't see the whole of the sky," says John Lucey, a team member from Durham University, UK.

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on April 03, 2009
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There's plenty of coverage today about the latest from the Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics (PAMELA) — a collaboration between Italy, Russia, Germany and Sweden, which studies high-energy electrons and anti-electrons in outer space.

As we reported in August, between 2006 and 2008 PAMELA saw an unexpected excess of positrons (anti-electrons) whizzing around space. That excess could be from a nearby astrophysical source, or it could be from the annihilation of dark matter—heavy, rarely interacting particles that make up about 85% of the matter in the universe. The news today is based on the fact that the work has appeared in this week's issue of Nature.

Incidentally, this issue also has a pretty nice Q&A about dark matter and dark energy with Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College and Marc Kamionkowski of the California Institute of Technology.

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on April 02, 2009
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Two major European Space Agency (ESA) missions have been postponed due to technical issues. Herschel, an infrared observatory, and Planck, a satellite to study the cosmic microwave background, were to launch aboard a single Ariane 5 rocket in mid-April from ESA's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

But it appears that the launch is off for now. No new date has yet been given, and further details are expected within the hour.

Update

OK maybe not within the hour, but ESA has released a statement:

"The verification of operations procedures for Herschel and Planck at ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) has now positively concluded. However, during final checks on the spacecraft, concerns have arisen and a short delay is proposed in order to allow ESA and Arianespace to carry out a final and independent check of the safety margins. Therefore, the final decision on the date of the Herschel and Planck launch will be postponed by a few days."

Credit: ESA

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on April 02, 2009
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The space shuttle Atlantis is being set up on its launch pad in preparation for the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. (Image right shows Atlantis atop the mobile launcher platform yesterday.)

Led by Scott Altman, mission STS-125 will undertake five spacewalks to upgrade and repair the telescope's sensors, batteries and gyroscopes, hopefully equipping it for another five years of operation (NASA press release).

“I remember when I was a kid going outside and looking up at the stars and going, ‘Wow, I wonder what’s out there’ ... Hubble is a tool that can take you out there to those distant galaxies, those pictures that come back,” said Altman in an interview last year.

“… It’s amazing to me when I talk to people and I say, hey, I’m going to the Hubble, they go, “Wow, I’m so glad we’re going back.” All kinds of folks in every walk of life know about Hubble and connect with the idea that it’s a good thing for us to have and they’ve made some connection with it on their own.”

Continue reading "A final trip to Hubble" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 01, 2009
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Faced with a gloomy property market here on Earth, Swedish students are designing a robot to erect a one-room house on the Moon.

The class, led by robotics professor Lars Asplund at Mälardalen University, posted a video of the prototype robot, nicknamed Roony, last week. (Skip to 0:39 seconds to see the robot build a prototype.)

Their collaborator, artist Mikael Genberg, has built variations of a traditional red Swedish house with white trim in other unusual locations, including one partially submerged in a lake and another up in a tree, both of which double as hotels.

His 'Luna Resort' concept dates back a few years. Genberg told the BBC in 2006 that he was aiming for a 2011 launch date and that he had the support of the Swedish Space Corporation. The 10 square meter house could be in place on the moon by 2012, according to a statement released today, though the statement does not specify a launch vehicle.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on April 01, 2009
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North Korea is gearing up to launch its first satellite atop its brand new Unha-2, a three-stage rocket based on earlier technology. Nobody knows exactly when the launch will happen, but it will likely be soon: satellite images released by the always useful Institute for Science and International Security show that there's something big on the pad at the North Korean's launch site in Musudan-ri.

What, exactly, that something might be has proved a really fun guessing game for the folks over at Arms Control Wonk. They've been speculating about the blurry stick, but so far, about all they've figured out is that it is definitely a three-stage vehicle. A nice analysis by David Wright over at the Union of Concerned Scientists, sums up what little else can be said about the Unha-2: It's probably capable of carrying 100kg into orbit, and it is based on the North Korean's earlier missile, the TaepoDong-2. The TD-2 was only flight tested once before in July of 2006, and on that occasion it failed spectacularly and wound up in the Pacific Ocean.

That is unlikely to happen this time around in part because the US and Japan are vowing to shoot down any debris using their own missile defence technology. Aegis destroyers are moving into positions where they could intercept the launch with a Standard Missile 3 (see right), and the Japanese have even deployed Patriot missile batteries around Tokyo. All this has really ticked off the Norks, who, with characteristic hyperbolae have warned that shooting down their rocket "precisely means a war." Stay tuned, the next few weeks promise to be interesting to say the least.

Image: U.S. Navy

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on March 31, 2009
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Astronomy fans are preparing to burn the midnight oil, using night-vision-friendly red lanterns of course, for 100 hours of astronomy outreach in the form of open-telescope nights, astronomer question and answer sessions, and online webcasts starting 2 April.

Anyone armed with an internet connection can take control of one of nine observatories remotely and snap photos of their favourite quasar or sunspot.

Headline projects will include a 24-hour live webcast called Around the World in 80 Telescopes on 3 Apri, in which astronomers from 80 different observatories will tell stories and share images of their work, and a 24-hour Global Star Party 4 April in which local astronomy clubs are encouraged to organize their own local outreach star-gazing events in unusual locales ranging from city cafes to retirement homes.

The project is part of the International Year of Astronomy, coordinated by the International Astronomy Union and UNESCO and the IAU counts on at least 1500 local events taking place in over 130 countries.

Image: morning sky over ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile / ESO/Y. Beletsky

Posted by Lucas Laursen on March 31, 2009
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Both the NASA Watch and Bad Astronomy blogs are highlighting this new image of the International Space Station, released by NASA on 25 March.

Not wanting to miss out on the party, I thought I’d best join in. This picture shows the ISS, in NASA’s words, “backdropped by the blackness of space and the thin line of Earth’s atmosphere”.

Image: NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 30, 2009
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The space shuttle Discovery touched down safely in Florida on Saturday, marking the end of mission STS-119.

And as one mission comes home, another is just starting, as a Russian Soyuz docks at the International Space Station, carrying space tourist Charles Simonyi. All did not go smoothly however, notes AFP:

"One of the engines had a fault which the computer considered was serious and it began to move the Soyuz away from the ISS at a rate of one metre per second," mission control official Vladimir Sovlov told RIA-Novosti news agency.

"We decided not to allow that and asked the crew to intervene. The commander judged the engine was working normally and we authorised him to approach in manual mode, which was carried out successfully."

Mission control spokesman Valery Lyndin told Reuters, “This is not unusual. Now everything is fine.”

Image: NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 30, 2009
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Space shuttle Discovery, which launched last week, successfully docked with the International Space Station yesterday.

“Capture confirmed,” said Mike Fincke, station commander, after the successful docking.

“We have a beautiful view of the station,” said pilot Tony Antonelli as the shuttle approached the ISS (Houston Chronicle). Fincke was equally complimentary about the approaching shuttle: “We’ve never seen such a beautiful sight.”

Sadly, NASA has confirmed that the bat which tried to hitch a lift on the shuttle is thought to have perished. In a statement the agency says:

Based on images and video, a wildlife expert who provides support to the [Kennedy Space Center] said the small creature was a free tail bat that likely had a broken left wing and some problem with its right shoulder or wrist. The animal likely perished quickly during Discovery’s climb into orbit.

Image: NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 18, 2009
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After a slight delay, the European Space Agency’s GOCE probe has lifted off.

For more on the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, see: Gravity mission to launch.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 17, 2009
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Update: A Google rep reminded me that to get the nearly 'live' images, you'll have to view the Themis data through the new version of Google Earth. The link below is to the Themis 'Live from Mars' site, which doesn't work the same way.

At the end of last week, the Google Earth and Maps team announced a new feature in Google Earth: the ability to see "live" data from Themis, the infrared imager on the Mars Odyssey orbiter.
(Note the qualifying quotation marks around "live" though -- it's still a few days behind. When I looked this afternoon, it was streaming images from 1 February.)
It's a great idea, however, and it shows how the Internet has put the public side by side with scientists in the front row of the movie theater. This summer, the Phoenix mission should be commended for doing a similar thing, putting raw images up on the Web just as fast as they got to Earth.
Sadly, Phoenix transmits no more. And one might also wonder how long 'live from Mars' might live with Odyssey, which is getting a bit long in the tooth (it began orbiting in 2001). Odyssey last week underwent a slightly risky reboot to make sure that engineers could transfer some of its operations to backup systems if the need arises.

Posted by Eric Hand on March 16, 2009
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Space shuttle Discovery took off from Florida yesterday at 7.43 pm, bound for the International Space Station.

“I’ve seen a lot of launches ... and this was the most visually beautiful launch I’ve ever seen. It was just spectacular,” says launch director Mike Leinbach (AP).

That enthusiasm seems to be shared by this man:

Sadly though there was one casualty from the launch. AP reports that a fruit bat had stopped for a rest on the shuttle’s external tank for several hours before launch and “likely perished” (see also space.com’s: Bat Attempts to Stowaway on Space Shuttle).

A rather hearless Leinbach gained cheap laugh at the bat’s expense: “We’re characterizing him as unexpected debris and he’s probably still unexpected debris somewhere.”

Photo credit: NASA/Fletch Hildreth

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 16, 2009
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I got a chance to ask NASA science chief Ed Weiler today about two pressing issues. First, is the servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, scheduled for 12 May, threatened at all by the messy collision of two satellites on 10 Feburary, as some had worried?

Weiler is confident that everything is on track. He points to the fact that the current Space Shuttle mission, delayed yet again today for other reasons, had been cleared for launch. The Hubble servicing will take place at a higher elevation -- closer to the space junk -- but not enough to cause problems, Weiler says. "I don't see any threat to the May 12 mission right now."

With regards to the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which crashed into the ocean after an unsuccessful launch, Weiler says no decisions have yet been made. The "knee-jerk" reaction, he says, is to rebuild immediately, using spare parts and existing decade-old designs. But Weiler says there's value also in taking an approach at the other end of the spectrum: Manage the best one can with existing carbon measurements, and take the time to build a state-of-the-art carbon observatory. NASA could also opt for something in the middle.

But, I asked him, wouldn't the $400 million in the stimulus package, given to NASA specifically for Earth science, be spent perfectly on rebuilding the $278 million OCO? Weiler says only part of an OCO price tag could be satisfied with stimulus money, which has to be spent within 18 months. An OCO II would take longer to build, in other words. "And there are plenty of other things to spend that [stimulus] money on, especially in Earth science," he says. He says Earth science division director Michael Frielich is consulting with senior scientists in the community on the approach to take and will make a decision in the coming month.

Posted by Eric Hand on March 11, 2009
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Rockets are set to launch! NASA has successfully tested the igniter that will fire up the Ares I rocket’s first stage motor. Ares I is a crew launch vehicle that forms part of NASA’s Constellation programme. It will ferry astronauts up to the International Space Station (ISS), the moon… and beyond.

The test produced a 200-feet long flame, for the residents of Promontory, Utah (if there are any) to enjoy.

Ares rockets won’t be used for years – 2015 is the date NASA quotes for the ISS transportations to begin. The Ares launch vehicle will have atop it the Orion capsule for the astronauts to sit in.

Continue reading "Rocket round up" »

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on March 11, 2009
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The next shuttle mission is nearly ready to go. STS-119 will install one final set of solar power arrays on the International Space Station (mission outline pdf).

Shuttle Discovery is set to launch on Wednesday. This shot shows the crew members at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida

Image: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 10, 2009
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NASA’s $600-million planet-hunting Kepler mission successfully launched last week.

“Kepler is a critical component in NASA’s broader efforts to ultimately find and study planets where Earth-like conditions may be present,” said Jon Morse, NASA’s astrophysics director (press release). “The planetary census Kepler takes will be very important for understanding the frequency of Earth-size planets in our galaxy and planning future missions that directly detect and characterize such worlds around nearby stars.”

You can read more about Kepler in the Nature News story Looking for worlds like this one.

Image: NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 09, 2009
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Satellite collisions and anti-satellite weapons may make for great headlines, but they're bad news for low earth orbit. When China tested an anti-satellite weapon on a defunct weather satellite in 2007, it created thousands of pieces of hazardous debris. A more recent collision between a defunct Russian communications satellite and an Iridium orbiter created still more dangerous junk.

Now the Russians are threatening to up the stakes, and possibly the amount of debris in orbit, by conducting another antisatellite test. That test would be in part a response to the China test and a 2008 test involving a ship-launched missile (pictured) by the US (which didn't create as much debris because the target was in a decaying orbit). It also has something to do with US plans to field an anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe.

It may just be posturing, but if such a test did occur, it could be disastrous. Much of the debris from the 2007 test and this year's collision will remain in orbit for years, and adding more will only increase the chances that more satellites are lost.

Incidentally, at least one Russian ex-general believes the US was behind last month's collision. Ria Novosti is quoting Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Leonid Shershnev, a former head of Russia's military space intelligence, as suggesting that a nefarious third satellite may have pushed the satellites into each other.

Credit: US Navy

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on March 06, 2009
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An asteroid made a 'close call' with the Earth on Monday, say the BBC and the Associated Press. But don't let the reports make you sweat too much -- the rock was still some 72,000 kilometers away at its closest point. That's about a fifth of the distance to the moon.

The asteroid, called 2009 DD45, was roughly 30 meters in diameter, which, the reports were sure to note, is about the size of the thing that blew up over Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs. But really, these 'near misses' happen fairly frequently -- in fact, according to Jet Propulsion Lab's catalog, an asteroid is supposed to zip past at a moon distance tomorrow. Watch out!

Posted by Eric Hand on March 05, 2009
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As described in today's Nature, a couple of guys over at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona have spotted a galaxy that appears to have two, supermassive black holes at its core. The two holes are pretty big: the smaller one is around 10 million solar masses and the big one weighs in at about a billion. The little one is orbiting at a third of a light year from its mate, and it gets around once every 100 years. In astronomical terms, that is incredibly fast.

This is something people have expected to see for a long time. Astronomers believe that today's galaxies formed from the mergers of earlier ones, and along the way, you would expect two black holes two be orbiting one another. But until now, nobody has actually spied a binary black hole system. It's a find big enough to attract quite a bit of coverage.

The way in which astronomers found this galaxy is just as remarkable. Instead of using some super-powerful telescope, they sifted through a giant database of the night sky, known as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. After checking some 17,500 distant galaxies, known as quasars, they found one that appeared to fit the bill.

Most astronomers agree that this sort of digital astronomy is the way forward, and more surveys are now in the works. You can hear one of the authors, Todd Boroson, talking all about this week's black hole discovery on Nature's podcast.

Credit: NOAO

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on March 05, 2009
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Planetary scientists have pinpointed what they believe is the source of Saturn's "G-ring," which is among the furthest and most diffuse of Saturn's seven rings. According to the Cassini Probe, which is orbiting the second largest planet in town, the G-ring likely came from a half-kilometre wide, as yet unnamed "moonlet".

Researchers believe that the G-ring formed from meteorite impacts and other collisions with the moonlet. Those impacts, they postulate, kicked up the fine dust that makes up the ring. It's actually the third time a moonlet has been spotted embedded in a ring.

I don't know if it's Saturn, or rings, or moonlets or what, but this story has been getting nothing but ink since it came out yesterday.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on March 04, 2009
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When Michael Mumma, of Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, finally published his methane-on-Mars results in Science, it certainly caused a stir. So far, the people tasked with picking a spot for the Mars Science Laboratory rover have resisted the allure of a landing site that sits within a broad methane hotspot, arguing that the hotspots are still too uncertain. Well, NASA is going to get to work on that uncertainty: it announced today that it is considering a "Mars Science Orbiter" (MSO) mission in 2016 that would specifically look to see when and where Mars is belching up the natural gas. (Methane can be produced via natural geologic processes but could also point towards hives of microbes living and burping underground.)

NASA Mars Program Chief Doug McCuistion described what the agency calls its "baseline" plan at the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group meeting in Virginia on Tuesday, a chance for the science community to offer feedback on these long-term plans, which are often very tentative -- and very fluid. The plan would include an MSO in 2016 followed by a exobiology lander or rover mission launched during a particularly juicy launch window in 2018 (the best since the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, McCuistion says). That plan would satisfy two longstanding NASA program requirements: keeping continuous communications orbiters in place for lander missions (Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be getting old), and continuous practice with the tricky task of landing spacecraft on the surface (gotta keep those engineers employed). The plan would also follow a natural progression: MSO would map the methane; the lander or rover would go after it with a suite of astrobiological instruments.

Continue reading "NASA pursues Mars methane orbiter" »

Posted by Eric Hand on March 03, 2009
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The public has voted on where they want to aim the Hubble Space Telescope. Given a choice by the website for Hubble's Next Discovery -- You Decide, part of the International Year of Astronomy, nearly half of 140,000 voters picked an interacting pair of spiral galaxies, called Arp274. The close-knit galaxies look like they are shaking hands, according to some observers.

From Newswise science:

Hubble has shown that interacting galaxies are very photogenic because, under the relentless pull of gravity, they weave elegant twisted lanes of dust and stars, and brilliant blue clusters of newborn stars. The new picture of Arp 274 promises to reveal intriguing never-before-seen details in the galactic grand slam. The Hubble observations will be taken during the International Year of Astronomy's "100 Hours of Astronomy," taking place from April 2 - 5. The full-color galaxy image will be released publicly during that time.

Let's hope it isn't hit by satellite debris first.

Posted by Richard Van Noorden on March 03, 2009
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Pluto has a perspiration problem. Whenever it gets near the Sun, the recently demoted planet "sweats" out an atmosphere.

The sweat is caused by the sublimation of frozen nitrogen and methane on the dwarf planet's surface. That sublimation works a little like our perspiration: cooling the planet's surface while heating the upper atmosphere (see the press release for more). The upshot of all this is that Pluto's atmosphere is upside down; it's about 40 degrees warmer at the top than it is at the planet's surface (it's still pretty cold, at -180C).

Earlier observations indicated that this was probably the case, but what's really amazing is that the Very Large Telescope's CRyogenic InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph (CRIRES) is powerful enough to image Pluto's lower atmosphere from a Chilean mountaintop.

credit: ESO

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on March 03, 2009
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China’s first lunar probe completed its mission on Sunday by smashing into the Moon and annihilating itself, says the China National Space Administration.

The Chang’e-1 probe – launched in 2007 – was the first part of China’s ambitious plans to put a rover on the Moon by 2013. Data from the impact will be used in the next stage of the plans: a soft landing by Chang’e-2, Wu Weiren, the probe’s chief designer told state media. Chang’e-3 will follow in 2013, says Xinhua:

The mission of Chang'e-3 is to make soft landing and probe the moon, said Ye [Peijian], a member of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body.

Before the mission, Chang'e-2 will be launched at the latest in 2011 to test key technologies of soft landing and lower technical risks, he said.

Over on the Bad Astronomy blog Phil Plait is bemoaning the fact that of three orbiters currently buzzing the Moon two are Japanese and one is Indian, with no American Moon-bug in sight. As he acknowledges, NASA does have the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in the works. Although the launch of this has now been delayed until 20 May, at the earliest.

“LRO had been scheduled to launch on April 24, but a domino effect of scheduling problems pushed the moon mapping effort deeper into spring,” says The Examiner. “The delay is the latest in a series of NASA hard-luck stories ranging from a grounded space shuttle to the loss of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory.”

This seems as good an opportunity as any to direct your attention once again to a personal favourite of the Great Beyond’s ‘Songs about the Moon’ piece: Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon.

Image: artist’s impression of LRO / NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 02, 2009
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Could NASA finally be getting a new commander at the helm? The Orlando Sentinel is saying that Steve Isakowitz, the Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Energy, is now the frontrunner, attributing the information to 'administration insiders.'
An aerospace engineering graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Isakowitz has held posts at the CIA and at NASA, where he was a deputy associate administrator for space exploration.
With acting administrator Chris Scolese in charge ever since Mike Griffin left on 19 January, some are getting itchy for a sign from President Barack Obama that NASA hasn't fallen off his list of priorities. About a month ago, it looked like retired Air Force General Scott Gration, a military adviser and campaign-trail confidante of Obama's, was a lock. But that seemed to be held up, partly because of objections from key lawmakers. Other names that have been rumoured include two other retired generals: Air Force Gen. Lester Lyles, a member of the NASA Advisory Committee, and Marine Corps Gen. Charlie Bolden, a former astronaut.
The Sentinel says that Isakowitz is gaining key support from lawmakers such as Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland. But one might want to ask Energy Secretary Steven Chu if he's willing to let a key civil servant go just when he could use some help spending the DoE's $40 billion stimulus package.

Posted by Eric Hand on March 02, 2009
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

US federal authorities have accused a scientist and his family of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from NASA to buy cars and real estate.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) searched the office of Samim Anghaie, a professor of radiological engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, on Wednesday. University spokesman Steve Orlando said the FBI also searched the school's Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute, which Anghaie founded (CNN). The university has put Anghaie on leave without pay (Orlando Sentinel).

A research company founded by Anghaie and his family, called New Era Technology or NETECH, allegedly submitted fraudulent proposals and invoices to NASA, according to court documents. Anghaie's wife, Sousan Anghaie, is president of the company. Court documents say that NETECH has won 13 government contracts since 1999 and has received almost $3.4 million from NASA, the Air Force, and the Department of Energy (AP).

Investigators allege that hundreds of thousands of dollars was funneled from NETECH's corporate account into the Anghaies' personal bank accounts and used to buy six vehicles, as well as property in Gainesville, Connecticut, Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa (Gainesville Sun). Authorities have warrants to seize the family's cars, bank accounts, and real estate. Anghaie and his wife have not been arrested, the US Attorney's office in Tallahassee said Wednesday.

Anghaie earned his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Pennsylvania State University and has worked at the University of Florida for nearly 30 years. He has served on advisory boards and panels for NASA, the National Research Council, the US Department of Energy, and the US Department of Defense (Chronicle of Higher Education news blog). Anghaie currently has two NASA grants at the University of Florida to study nuclear-powered space travel.

Posted by Alex Witze on February 26, 2009
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Today’s space picture is another contribution from the European Southern Observatory, or the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, to use its full name. This is the Helix planetary nebula, a giant shell of gas 700 light years given off by a star dying into a white dwarf.

ESO says:

Despite being photographically very spectacular the Helix is hard to see visually as its light is thinly spread over a large area of sky and the history of its discovery is rather obscure. It first appears in a list of new objects compiled by the German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding in 1824. The name Helix comes from the rough corkscrew shape seen in the earlier photographs.

The resemblance of the Helix to an eye has led to this nebula being christened ‘The Eye of God’ (Telegraph, Sun).

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 26, 2009
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India is following up its Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission with a billion dollar plan to put astronauts into orbit.

The Indian Planning Commission has reportedly signed off a $2.5 billion plan to follow an unmanned orbiter in 2013-2014 with a manned mission in 2014-2015. This is actually slightly less ambitious than some of the rumours that were circulating when Chandrayaan launched, which had India putting people on the Moon by 2015.

“We are planning to put persons in the vehicle and launch them into space for seven days in an orbit of 275 km,” says K Radhakrishnan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (various).

The London Times says that although the Indian Cabinet still has to sign off the plan this is a formality now the commission has approved it.

While the merits of manned space programmes can – and will – be debated till everyone is blue in the face, it’s nice to see some new players on the space scene. After all, there’s space for everyone up there (so long as you’re careful).

Image: launch of Chandrayaan-1 / ISRO via Wikipedia

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 23, 2009
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The Japanese space agency's SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer, or Kaguya) mission has sent back a stunning movie of the Earth blocking out the Sun during a lunar eclipse - the first time such an image has been seen from the Moon. Gawp away.

Posted by Richard Van Noorden on February 20, 2009
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This exotic green comet, named Lulin, will make its closest approach to Earth on 24th February (22.43 EST), when it will be a mere 60 million km (0.41 AU) away.

Astronomers have been avidly tracking its course over the last few months [spotting instructions, assorted links]. With a maximum brightness of between 4 and 5, it could be dimly visible to the naked eye, says Science News. NASA astronomer Stephen Edberg tells AP that Lulin will be paying a one-time visit only to our solar system: it rounded the Sun on 10 January, and is already on its way out, calculates Brian Marsden of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, at Space.com. And weirdly, Edberg adds, the comet is circling the Sun clockwise (all the planets, and most other objects in the solar system, circle anticlockwise). “It essentially is going backwards through the Solar System,” he says.

Lulin was spotted by 19-year-old Chinese meteorology student Quanzhi Ye at Sun Yat-sen University in 2007, from a photo taken a few nights earlier by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin at the Lulin Observatory. Ye is now tracking the comet on his blog.

Its green colour, Science@NASA explains, comes from the toxic cyanogen ((CN)₂) and diatomic carbon (C₂) gases that make up the comet’s Jupiter-sized atmosphere. Other notable green comets of recent years (whose colour originates from the same gases) include comet Swan (2006), comet Lovejoy (2007) – spotted from a photo taken by an off-the-shelf digital camera – and comet Machholz (2004).

Image: credit to Jack Newton, at the Arizona Sky Village

Posted by Richard Van Noorden on February 18, 2009
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GalaxyZoo2 just launched. If you weren’t aware of GalaxyZoo the original, you’re way behind the times, man. But never mind, time now to catch up. GalaxyZoo is every amateur astronomer’s dream – a chance to spot and characterise new planetary objects from a swathe of data that scientists just don’t have the time to analyse.

The data set is from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and includes almost a quarter of a million galaxies.

The project in its initial guise became a bit of a media celebrity, which we pointed TGB readers to last year, when Hanny Van Arkel discovered an unknown, unique astronomical object. Van Arkel attributed her inspiration for taking part in the project to rock music.

The old version of GalaxyZoo asked participants to classify objects as either elliptical or spiral, but now things have got tougher. The Zoo wants more. So during a trawl of the images available from the website, you will now be asked to say what shape the thing you’ve spotted is. Not only what shape, but how much of that shape it is – so if it’s round – how round? These are taxing questions.

There is much rejoicing about the site's launch over at the accompanying blog, and media coverage has taken up the nicely placed PR bait of asking whether you want to be involved in “writing the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”.

Well if you do, or even if you don’t and just fancy a go at astronomical classification, or better still, a brush with fame, now is your chance. Oh, and GalaxyZoo isn’t the only chance for you to play your part. Other amateur astronomy projects include transitsearch, which coordinates amateur astronomers to look for extrasolar planets transiting their star – which then provide targets for the big academic boys to look more closely.

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on February 17, 2009
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Today’s space picture shows the Carina Nebula, some 7,500 light years away.

It was produced by the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere by combining shots taken through six different filters on the Wide Field Imager in Chile. ESO says the Nebula is “where strong winds and powerful radiation from an armada of massive stars are creating havoc in the large cloud of dust and gas from which the stars were born”.

The big bright spot on this image is the star Eta Carinae, which ESO calls “highly unstable, and prone to violent outbursts”. Back in 1842 Eta Carinae had its “most notable” Christian Bale moment and for a few years was the second brightest star in the sky.

Phil Plait on the Bad Astronomy blog notes:

… one day it’ll blow, and when it does, well, yikes. It’s one of the most luminous and massive stars in the galaxy, and there’s a small but finite chance that it’ll go all gamma-ray burst on us some day. Happily, it’s not aimed at us if it does, but even as a plain old supernova it’s a terrifying object. It’s a binary, and one of the stars must have about 100 times the mass of the Sun, pretty much at the theoretical limit of how massive a star can be without tearing itself apart.

I’ve written about black holes, galaxies colliding, and even the eventual fate of the Universe. I tell you this to put in perspective that objectively, Eta Car scares the crap out of me.

More coverage
A colorful view of the Carina Nebula – USA Today

Image: ESO

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 13, 2009
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It's a scenario that space analysts have forecasted for years: With thousands of satellites in orbit, sooner or later two had to collide.

As first reported by CBS News, a defunct Russian communication satellite known as Cosmos 2251 collided on Tuesday with one of 66 satellites in the Iridium constellation, which is used for satellite telephones. Within 12 hours, the US Strategic Command, which tracks space objects, had seen over 600 pieces of debris created by the collision.

That's not surprising considering these satellites weighed around 700 kg each and were travelling at 7.5 kilometres per second (a rifle bullet, by comparison, travels at around 1 kilometre per second). An analysis by David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, estimates that the number of debris pieces could easily stretch into the millions, with over a thousand posing a very real threat to other satellites.

Why didn't anyone see it coming? Well apparently, calculations of collision scenarios (known as conjunction in the biz) are presently only performed on the most valuable of space objects, such as the shuttle and space station. ESA also does conjunction analysis for its operational satellites.

Coverage
Orbital Collision Was The Worst Ever - Aviation Week
U.S., Russian satellites collide in orbit - MSNBC

Image: Iridium satellite

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on February 12, 2009
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Iran’s announcement that it has successfully put a satellite in orbit has successfully triggered the fear in many.

The satellite is named Omid (Hope), and according to Reuters is for research and telecoms. Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, commented, “Iran’s satellite technology is for purely peaceful purposes and to meet the needs of the country.”

However France, American and UK are already expressing concerns about Iran’s apparent space-ability, mainly because the technology used could also be used to make ballistic missiles (BBC).

Continue reading "Iran’s Sputnik" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 03, 2009
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For NASA and the European Space Agency, the next major mission to the outer planets has come down to Titan or Europa (and Ganymede, really, but you'll have to read our story to understand how that fits in). The science chiefs for the two agencies, Ed Weiler and Dave Southwood, were planning on make a decision last week, via teleconference. But they now plan to meet face to face at the end of next week. I told one of the big Titan proponents, Jonathan Lunine, at the University of Arizona in Tucson, that he might get a present in time for Valentine's Day. But he says he's equally prepared for a Friday-the-13th "chainsaw delivery".

Posted by Eric Hand on February 02, 2009
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Today’s image comes from 13 million light-years away, via the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere. Combining new data from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) with visible and X-ray observations produces this picture.

As the Bad Astronomy blog explains:

The composite image is false color. The visible light (shown in more or less true color) is from stars and gas in the galaxy (and foreground stars in our own galaxy). The blue is from Chandra, showing high energy X-rays. See how the jets are blue near the center? When they erupt from near the black hole they have tremendous energy and glow in X-rays. Measurements of how the gas is behaving indicate that the gas is moving outwards from the core at half the speed of light.

The APEX results are presented in this paper.

Credit: ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray).

Posted by Daniel Cressey on January 29, 2009
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NASA’s Mars rover Spirit is playing up on the Red Planet.

On Sunday Spirit received driving commands but failed to move, according to a statement from the rover-wranglers. In addition the rover did not record what it actually got up to on Sunday in its “non-volatile memory” which is supposed to work even when power is off.

“We don't have a good explanation yet for the way Spirit has been acting for the past few days,” says Sharon Laubach, who heads the team that writes and checks commands for the rovers. “Our next steps will be diagnostic activities.”

As Spirit has spent 1,800 days on Mars – on what was allegedly a 90 day mission – some news sources are accusing it of “growing senile” and suggesting the problem is due to its “aging”.

However, as NASA points out, what actually happened was Spirit “did not report some of its weekend activities” and is “having some behavior issues”.

Maybe the rover is just entering that difficult teenage phase. Maybe it’s growing tired of being told what to do all the time. “Sweep up this dirt, go over there, find me a glass of water.” Can you blame it if it wants a lie in on a Sunday? Give the poor thing some freedom.

Image: latest photo from Spirit, if you look carefully you can see the rover has written ‘no one understands me’ in the dust / NASA.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on January 29, 2009
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Astronauts who spend months on the international Space Station need to take care when coming back to earth that they don’t do so with too much of a jolt. Joyce Keyak, orthopedic surgery and biomedical engineering professor from the University of California Irvine says that astronauts who are up there for months at a time are losing “alarming amounts of hipbone strength” (press release).

Alarming indeed: “on average, astronauts’ hipbone strength decreased 14 percent. Three astronauts experienced losses of 20 percent to 30 percent, rates comparable to those seen in older women with osteoporosis,” we are told.

It has long been known that the microgravity conditions in space vehicles cause bones to weaken. But density, rather than strength, has been the measure used so far, we are told. Bone strength, as measured by Keyak’s computer programme hooked up to a CT scanner, deteriorates more than bone density. This loss of strength will make those astronauts more susceptible to bone fractures in later life, especially in their hips, which are most vulnerable.

Back in 1985, a Nature News and Views article, The skeleton in space, by A. W. Goode and P.C. Rambaut, stated “With astronauts now making multiple short trips and with the prospect of their undertaking recurrent 3-month tours of duty on the Space Station, an understanding on the influence of gravity on the skeleton becomes urgent.”

So here we are, 24 years later, being alarmed. There’s progress.

Image: Punchstock

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on January 28, 2009
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The Hubble Space Telescope is now working again after a fashion, following its little bit of downtime last year.

What should it look at next? You can decide.

“In 1609, Galileo turned his telescope on the night sky for the first time. Now, 400 years later, your vote will help make the momentous decision of where to point modern astronomy's most famous telescope,” proclaims the website for Hubble's Next Discovery -- You Decide, part of International Year of Astronomy.

Your six choices, in order of their current ranking, are:

Interacting Galaxies: Arp 274
Star-Forming Region: NGC 6634
Spiral Galaxy: NGC 5172
Edge-on Galaxy: NGC 4289
Planetary Nebula: NGC 6072
Planetary Nebula: NGC 40

[Hat tip: Bad Astronomy.]

Image: NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey on January 28, 2009
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first use of a telescope, the great astronomer will be… exhumed?

Yes, curious scientists have applied for permission to take a DNA sample from Galileo's body, which currently lies in the basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. He's not the only one up for un-entombment: 16th-century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe could also be exhumed for a belated autopsy to determine whether he was murdered by a shifty cousin acting on the King of Denmark's orders.

Why the sudden interest in deceased stargazers? In Galileo's case, a team of scientists wants to figure out how the astronomer's eye problems might have distorted his observations. "If we knew exactly what was wrong with his eyes we could use computer models to recreate what he saw in his telescope," says Paolo Galluzzi, director of the Museum of History and Science in Florence (Reuters). Galileo's eyesight, which went downhill starting in his 40s and left him blind by the time he died, could explain why the astronomer mistakenly thought Saturn had bulges rather than a ring, Galluzzi says.

Brahe's case is a bit more scandalous. The astronomer may have been offed by his cousin at the command of Christian IV, the King of Denmark, because of an affair between Brahe and the king's mother, says scholar Peter Andersen at the University of Strasbourg (The Times). Andersen says he found "details of the attack and, indirectly, the murderer's confession" in the diary of Brahe's cousin last year (Telegraph). Analysis of a sample of Brahe's hair, preserved by a Czech museum, suggests the likely murder weapon was mercury. But the rest of Brahe is in a Prague cathedral vault, so a team of archaeologists has requested permission to open it and settle the question of his death.

News outlets appear to be competing to see who can come up with the oddest biographical detail about Brahe. The astronomer "is said to have worn a prosthetic nose of gold and silver," says the Times, "after losing his own at the age of 20 in a rapier duel resulting from a row over a mathematical formula." Not to be outdone, the Telegraph notes that Brahe kept a "supposedly clairvoyant dwarf named Jepp" at his castle and owned a pet moose, which died falling down the stairs after getting drunk on beer.

Image: Galileo, from Astronomy Picture of the Day

Posted by Alex Witze on January 23, 2009
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Posted on behalf of Asher Mullard

A two-tonne satellite specifically designed to study climate change was successfully launched today from Japan.

Orbiting at a level of 666km, the greenhouse gases observing satellite (GOSAT) will monitor the levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere in a 5-year study.

The satellite was launched today from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan at 12:54 pm, Bloomberg reports.

Japan spent 18.3 billion yen ($205 million) developing Gosat, which has also been dubbed “Ibuki,” the Japanese word for “breath.” The solar-powered satellite has a wing-span of 13.7 meters and weighs 1,750 kilograms (3,858 pounds).

An American climate-change satellite, dubbed the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), is scheduled to launch in February.

OCO will be able to pinpoint key locations where carbon dioxide is being emitted and absorbed.

Top image: The spacecraft carrying GOSAT takes flight. JAXA.

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on January 23, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Space and astronomy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just days after inauguration, it's looking increasingly like President Barack Obama's pick for NASA administrator may fail to launch. Retired Air Force General Jonathan Scott Gration, a former fighter pilot and Obama's buddy, was rumoured to be the new president's first choice to run the space agency.

But Gration's lack of space experience caused Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson to express some scepticism. Now it appears that another powerful senator with strong NASA interests—Barbara Mikulski (Democrat, Maryland)—has expressed doubts, along with other unnamed sources, according to the popular blog NASA Watch.

The senators matter because they can approve or reject any of Obama's political appointment. Fortunately they gave a big thumb's up to Nobel-laureate-turned-energy-secretary Steven Chu.

credit: USAF

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on January 23, 2009
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Mike Griffin, NASA’s chief administrator, has said his farewells to NASA staff in an all-hands meeting.

You can read a transcript of his entire speech over at Spaceref.com. Mike seems like a funny guy, from all the ‘[laughter]’ inserts there are in the transcript. He also has a lot of people to thank for being ‘inside his head’. It must be quite full in there.

It is no secret that Griffin wanted to stay on at NASA under the Obama administration (he offered his resignation to Obama, as is usual for political appointees); even his wife campaigned for him to stay when, late on Christmas Eve, she sent an email to a bunch friends and family to ask for their help to keep her husband in his job.

But Obama accepted the resignation, and Mike has to go. Not before having his say and a pop at some of his critics: “I am, despite what you read on the blogs, not actually an idiot,” he said. [Laughter.]

He acknowledged the difficulties some of his staff have had with him and his decisions, and admitted that he has a problem “connecting with people”.

Griffin is still strongly in favour of establishing a base on the Moon as a place to hop off to Mars from. And for that matter, he’s pretty sure that NASA scientists will find life out there (New Scientist).

Griffin came to NASA in the aftermath of the Columbia shuttle disaster and he praised all at NASA for “the way that we have managed to pick ourselves up after Columbia and find technically solid ways to return to the Shuttle to flight”. (LA Times) Part of Griffin's legacy is the end of the Shuttle programme to service the space station, which has also met with criticism. Griffin is instead doggedly determined that men should get to visit Mars.

So, farewell Mike. Whatever you end up doing next. We will leave this post with his final words as administrator:

“Thanks again, everybody. Thanks for coming today.
[Standing ovation.]“

Image: NASA/Renee Bouchard

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on January 19, 2009
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"Life on Mars" exclaimed the British tabloid the Sun in a headline this morning, reporting on the detection of seasonal methane gas in the atmosphere of Mars. The journal Science, in which atmospheric scientist Michael Mumma describes his discovery this week, then decried the Sun for nearly breaking an embargo on the news. "In the interests of supporting excellence in science communications," an email from the journal's publishing society states, "we urge all registered journalists in good standing to adhere to the Science embargo-release time, and refrain from validating this unfortunate tabloid teaser."

Let's slow down a bit, both of you. First off, methane doesn't necessarily mean life. Yes, on Earth, atmospheric methane is mostly the work of cows, and microbes in the soil can also burp up the stuff. But on Mars, biology is not necessarily any more likely as a source of methane than geology, since water can create methane by breaking down certain volcanic minerals. What's interesting about the methane discovery is that there could potentially be a lot of it. Mumma, of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, claims to have discovered variability in the methane concentrations in both space and time. Methane would normally mix and breakdown in the atmosphere over time. But Mumma, using Earth-based telescopes, spotted seasonal plumes of methane concentrated in hotspots: it implies the work of tens of thousands of cows, or their geological equivalent.

As far as the embargo break, in this case it's a little silly to complain about it. Both Nature and Science try to enforce strict embargoes on their journal articles to create news events. But science is a slow process, with as many zigs and zags as eurekas. And Mumma has been talking about his methane work for years. In fact, I wrote about this methane discovery in October, after Mumma gave a talk at a conference at Cornell University.

For me, the more interesting question is: Will NASA switch its Mars exploration mantra from "follow the water" to "stalk the methane"? The Mars Science Laboratory, due for launch in 2011, is equipped with an instrument that can detect methane at levels of parts per trillion. But a potential landing site, in the same region as one of Mumma's hotspots, was thrown out of consideration months ago. Time to reconsider? "Now we've got these little signposts saying: 'Look, here I am. Come here!'" Mumma told me in October.
Image: USDA/Keith Weller

Posted by Eric Hand on January 15, 2009
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

James Hansen isn’t shy about speaking up, and now the American Meteorological Society is rewarding him for it.

Hansen, a NASA climate scientist known best for his outspoken criticism of the Bush administration, received the 2009 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal yesterday, the highest award given by the AMS. The society commended him for his contributions to climate modeling but also his “clear communication” to the public.

“The debate about global change is often emotional and controversial, and Jim has had the courage to stand up and say what others did not want to hear,” said Franco Einaudi, director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland (NASA press release). “He has acquired a credibility that very few scientists have.”

Continue reading "Outspoken climate scientist gets props" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on January 15, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Space and astronomy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The UK's most successful independent satellite manufacturer has been swallowed whole by a European defence conglomerate.

Only a handful of small companies have been able to make it in the space business, and one of them was Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, based in Guilford, UK. Since its founding in 1985, SurreySat, as its employees call it, has been building so-called microsats weighing between 10-100kg. Where others have foundered, it's succeeded: in 2006 (the last year for which stats are available) the company brought in around £20 million in revenue and generated a roughly £500,000 profit.

But SurreySat's success was a problem for the University of Surrey, which held an 85% stake in the company. The university had supported the start-up in its early years, but wanted to divest as it grew in size.

Last year, aerospace behemoth EADS announced that it would buy the university's stake in the company for a mere £40-50 million. That's peanuts to the Franco-German giant, whose revenue topped €39.1 billion (with a b) in 2007. The deal has just passed muster with the European Commission, who are satisfied that competition will be unaffected by the merger.

It remains to be seen exactly what this means for Europe's plans for its own GPS, Galileo. SurreySat and EADS had been rival bidders for the project.

credit: ESA

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on January 15, 2009
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To coincide with the International Year of Astronomy, the British Royal Astronomical Society is highlighting an unsung pioneer. Thomas Harriot, who lived from 1560 to 1621, was the first person to draw a celestial object through a telescope, says University of Oxford historian Allan Chapman.

This image is his map of the Moon. Although this was probably not finished till 1613, one of Harriot’s sketches was made in 1609 several months before Italian Johnny-come-lately Galileo Galilei, says Chapman. Harriot would later say Harriot's friend William Lower would later write to him, saying of the Moon, “she appears like a tarte that my cooke made me the laste weeke”.

Chapman has noted previously that the exact dates of Galilei’s observations are not entirely clear. And Harvard historian of science Owen Gingerich, says Harriot’s “telescopic drawings of the moon were strongly influenced by what he saw in Galileo’s Sidereus nuncius”.

Whoever was first, there is here, as Gingerich notes, a motto for all scientists: publish or perish.

More
'English Galileo' maps on display - BBC
Did an Englishman beat Galileo to the first moon observation? – Guardian
We like the moon - video

Chapman's new article on Harriot will be published in the February edition of 'Astronomy and Geophysics'.
Image: Lord Egremont

Posted by Daniel Cressey on January 14, 2009
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Mike Griffin, the administrator of NASA, is making the farewell rounds. While this blunt, irascible leader with a self-described "difficult user-interface" isn't prone to emotional outbursts, make no mistake: he will miss his job.

Speaking at a breakfast press briefing Tuesday, sponsored by the Space Foundation, he confirmed that as of noon on 20 January -- president-elect Barack Obama's inauguration -- he'll be gone. He has submitted his letter of resignation, as is customary for political appointees, and has not been asked to stay by the incoming administration. He's planning a final address to his employees at NASA headquarters on Friday, and then will take off for a few days of skiing. After that, he says, "I'll go home and start looking for another job."

In terms of a successor, the Obama transition team has so far been quiet, and so until someone is named, associate administrator Chris Scolese will be at the helm. Of course, speculation is rife, and plenty of names have been thrown around, everyone from former NASA science chief Alan Stern, to former NASA earth science division leader Charles Kennel, to astronaut and retired US Marine General Charlie Bolden.

Griffin would not comment on the qualities that he thinks are important in an administrator, but did say: "I love this space agency, I love NASA, I love the program. If they pick someone who loves it as much as I do, that will be the most important thing." I'm not going to say I heard his voice tightening or cracking, but that's about as emotional as I've heard him.

Asked about the immediate challenges a successor would face, Griffin mentioned some of the usual things: dealing with a continuing budget resolution, which will soon result in contractor layoffs; retiring the Space Shuttle by the end of 2010; and looking to continue the International Space station past 2015.

But he also mentioned a fairly narrow science mission, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), that I wrote about at length a few months ago. Not later than late spring, Griffin says, NASA needs guidance on AMS, an anti-matter detecting magnet that needs a ride to the ISS so it can start start tracking the cosmic rays that fall through its maw. Shuttle managers need 18 months of lead time to prepare for any specialized cargo like AMS, but right now, no flight is on the books. Obama mentioned adding an extra shuttle flight in his campaign rhetoric, and Congress, in its new NASA authorization act, mandated an extra flight for AMS. But congressional appropriators have yet to pay for one. Reading between the lines, it's possible that Griffin wants to make sure paying for an AMS flight doesn't come out of an existing NASA budget. "I've been working for three years to keep the option to fly that flight open. If they want to fly the flight, somebody has to send money, and they also have to send a specific direction to do so."
Image: NASA/Renee Bouchard

Posted by Eric Hand on January 13, 2009
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Rocket company SpaceX raised its Falcon 9 launcher to vertical on Saturday in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket is not going anywhere at the moment though, as this was just a trial run to make sure they could get it up with no hitches.

“We encountered no show-stoppers or significant delays,” says company CEO Elon Musk (press release). “I am highly confident that we will achieve our goal of being able to go from hangar to liftoff in under 60 minutes, which would be a big leap forward in capability compared with the days to weeks required of other launch vehicles.”

Falcon 9 follows the successful launch of Falcon 1 last year (after several attempts). For those wondering about Falcons 2 through 8, the names come from the number of engines on each type of rocket.

Image: SpaceX

Posted by Daniel Cressey on January 12, 2009
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Mike Griffin’s wife may want him to keep his job as head of NASA when America’s new supreme ruler takes his post, but many people think that’s not going to happen.

Inevitably someone has set up a website where you can nominate and vote for the man or woman you think should be the next administrator of the space agency. Equally inevitably, the denizens of the internet are not taking it very seriously.

Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait’s lobbying campaign has clearly been effective, as he leads his nearest rival, the Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton with 2,240 votes to 558. This is despite suggesting that he might “embezzle several billion dollars and disappear” if he is put in charge.

Mrs Griffin is unlikely to be happy, as her husband is currently behind Rick Astley, with just 160 votes.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on January 09, 2009
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A rather battered looking Space Shuttle Discovery heads to the Vehicle Assembly Building, where it will meet its external fuel tank and rocket boosters in preparation for a planned 12 February launch.

More on mission STS-119.

Image: NASA/Jim Grossmann

Posted by Daniel Cressey on January 09, 2009
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