Skip to main content

Home/ SciByte/ Group items tagged NASA

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Mars Base

SpaceX Signs Pact To Start Rocket Testing At NASA Stennis - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...rocket-testing-at-nasa-stennis

scibyte108 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • SpaceX
  • has signed a contract to research, develop and test Raptor methane rocket engines at the NASA Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi
  • plans to use the E-2 test stand at Stennis, which is able to support both vertical and horizontal rocket engine tests
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • A press release from his office said the presence of the private space company would boost jobs in the region
  • There’s little information on SpaceX’s website about what the Raptor engine is or specific development plans
  • Space News reports that it would be used for deep-space missions
  • SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has mentioned the engine previously when talking about Mars missions, according to multiple media reports
  • test the whole engine at Stennis
  • the first phase starts with the components
  • E-2 stand at Stennis is big enough for components, but we would need a bigger stand for the whole Raptor
  • reportedly hashing out a Space Act agreement to establish user fees and other parameters
  • Once that’s finished, the testing will begin, perhaps as early as next year
  • SpaceX currently does most of its rocket testing in Texas
Chris Fisher

NASA - NASA in Final Preparations for Nov. 8 Asteroid Flyby - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...yu55-20111025.html

scibyte20

shared by Chris Fisher on 02 Nov 11 - Cached
  • At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth
  • The last time a space rock as big came as close to Earth was in 1976
  • astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • he next known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028.
Mars Base

India's 1st Mars Mission Celebrates 100 Days and 100 Million Kilometers from Mars Orbit... - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ising-right-behind-nasas-maven

scibyte135 India-MarsOrbiterMission

shared by Mars Base on 22 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • India’s
  • Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM, has just celebrated 100 days and 100 million kilometers out from Mars on June 16, until the crucial Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) engine firing
  • NASA’s MAVEN orbiter
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • MAVEN arrives about 48 hours ahead of MOM on September 21, 2014.
  • rendezvous on September 24, 2014
  • MOM probe
  • will study the atmosphere and sniff for signals of methane.
  • Working together, MOM and MAVEN will revolutionize our understanding of Mars atmosphere, dramatic climatic history and potential for habitability
  • MOM was designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) at a cost of $69 Million and marks India’s maiden foray into interplanetary flight
  • before reaching Mars, mission navigators must keep the craft
  • on course
  • from Earth to Mars through a series of in flight Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TMSs).
  • The second TCM was just successfully performed on June 11 by firing the spacecraft’s 22 Newton thrusters for a duration of 16 seconds
  • TCM-1 was conducted on December 11, 2013 by firing the 22 Newton Thrusters for 40.5 seconds
  • Two additional TCM firings are planned in August and September 2014.
  • the probe has flown about 70% of the way to Mars, traveling about 466 million kilometers out of a total of 680 million kilometers (400 million miles) overall, with about 95 days to go.
  • One way radio signals to Earth take approximately 340 seconds
  • ISRO reports the spacecraft and its five science instruments are healthy. It is being continuously monitored by the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) and NASA JPL’s Deep Space Network (DSN). Remove this ad
  • Although they were developed independently and have different suites of scientific instruments, the MAVEN and MOM science teams will “work together” to unlock the secrets of Mars atmosphere and climate history, MAVEN’s top scientist
  • MAVEN’s principal Investigator
  • “We have had some discussions with their science team, and there are some overlapping objectives,”
  • “At the point where we [MAVEN and MOM] are both in orbit collecting data we do plan to collaborate and work together with the data jointly,”
Mars Base

Asteroid's troughs suggest stunted planet - 0 views

phys.org/...id-troughs-stunted-planet.html

scibyte65 Vesta

shared by Mars Base on 27 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Scientists have been trying to determine the origin of these unusual troughs since their discovery just last year
  • new analysis supports the notion that the troughs are faults that formed when a fellow asteroid smacked into Vesta's south pole. The research reinforces the claim that Vesta has a layered interior, a quality normally reserved for larger bodies, such as planets and large moons.
  • ggest of those troughs, named Divalia Fossa, surpasses the size of the Grand Canyon by spanning 465 kilometers (289 miles) long, 22 km (13.6 mi) wide and 5 km (3 mi) deep
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • The complexity of their formation can't be explained by simple collisions
  • New measurements
  • taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft last year
  • indicate that a large collision could have created the asteroid's troughs
  • would only have been possible if the asteroid is differentiated – meaning that it has a core, mantle and crust
  • By saying it's differentiated, we're basically saying Vesta was a little planet trying to happen
  • previous research has found signs of igneous rock on Vesta, indicating that rock on Vesta's surface was once molten, a sign of differentiation
  • If the troughs are made possible by differentiation, then the cracks aren't just troughs, they're graben
  • graben is a dip in the surface that forms when two faults move apart from each other and the ground sinks into the widening gap
  • Vesta's troughs have many of the qualities of graben
  • observations indicate that Vesta is also unusually planet-like for an asteroid in that its mantle is ductile and can stretch under a lot of pressure
  • not yet fully convinced that Vesta's troughs are graben
  • There are other qualities of Vesta that could be clues to how the troughs formed
  • unlike the larger asteroid Ceres, Vesta is not classified as a dwarf planet because the large collision at its south pole knocked it out of its spherical shape
  • if Vesta has a mantle and core, that would mean it has qualities often reserved for planets, dwarf planets and moons—regardless of its shape
  • believes the south pole collision knocked Vesta into its current speedy rate of rotation about its axis of about once per 5.35 hours
  • may have caused the equator to bulge outward so far and so fast that the rotation caused the troughs, rather than the direct power of the impact
  • enigma why Vesta rotates so quickly
  • Dawn has already left to explore Ceres, so all the data it will retrieve on Vesta is in hand
  • scientists will continue to sort that data out and improve on computer simulations of Vesta's interior
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Mars Rock Touched By NASA Curiosity Has Surprises - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...index.cfm

scibyte67 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 15 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • The first Martian rock NASA's Curiosity rover has reached out to touch presents a more varied composition than expected from previous missions
  • On Earth, rocks with composition like the Jake rock typically come from processes in the planet's mantle beneath the crust, from crystallization of relatively water-rich magma at elevated pressure.
  • elements
Mars Base

Surreal Images of Soyuz Landing in the Dark - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...s-of-soyuz-landing-in-the-dark

scibyte72 iss

shared by Mars Base on 19 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • problem with the Soyuz’ parachute – it deployed about 5 seconds later than planned – caused the crew to land several miles away from the planned landing site, but a Russian recovery team and NASA personnel reached the landing site by helicopter shortly afterward to assist the crew in getting out of the spacecraft, which landed on its side
  • 127 days in space
  • 125 days spent aboard the International Space Station
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Expedition 34 flight engineers — NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko — are scheduled to launch from Baikonur Dec. 19
  • for a five-month stay
  • Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the station when Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin depart in March, marking the start of Expedition 35.
  • no actual footage of the Soyuz touching down, since it was dark and the spacecraft landed well away from the planned landing spot.
Mars Base

NASA - Wind and Radiation on Mars - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...curiosity20121115.html

scibyte72 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 25 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • pictures haven't turned up any dust devils.
  • With Thanksgiving coming up we've been preparing a few days worth of commands to send up to the rover to keep it busy while people here take some much needed time off
Mars Base

Mars Rover Curiosity Gets Mission Extension | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/riosity-mission-extension.html

scibyte74 Curiosity MRO

shared by Mars Base on 05 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Curiosity's mission was originally planned to last two years. It has now been extended indefinitely.
  • Curiosity
  • radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG),
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • should be able to continue converting the heat of plutonium-238's radioactive decay into electricity for a long time
  • think it has 55 years of positive power margin
  • NASA will also keep its other Mars assets going as long as possible
  • include the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the Opportunity rover
  • applies to NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter as well
  • doesn't expect the spacecraft to still be viable in 2021
  • launched in 2001 and has been showing some signs of age
  • particularly important for the 2020 rover mission to have functioning orbiters at Mars to help relay communications back and forth to Earth
Mars Base

Water Ice Found at Mercury's North Pole | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/r-ice-messenger-discovery.html

scibyte73 mercury

shared by Mars Base on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Confirming decades of suspicion, a NASA spacecraft has spotted vast deposits of water ice on the planet closest to the sun
  • Temperatures on Mercury can reach 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius
  • around the north pole, in areas permanently shielded from the sun's heat
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Messenger spacecraft found a mix of frozen water and possible organic materials
  • Evidence of big pockets of ice is visible from a latitude of 85 degrees north up to the pole
  • smaller deposits scattered as far away as 65 degrees north.
  • NASA will direct Messenger's observation toward that area in the coming months — when the angle of the sun allows — to get a better look
  • Researchers also believe the south pole has ice, but Messenger's orbit has not allowed them to obtain extensive measurements of that region yet
  • Messenger will spiral closer to the planet in 2014 and 2015 as it runs out of fuel
  • Speculation about water ice on Mercury dates back more than 20 years
  • In 1991, Earth-bound astronomers fired radar signals to Mercury and received results showing there could be ice at both poles
  • reinforced by 1999 measurements using the more powerful Arecibo Observatorymicrowave beam in Puerto Rico
  • Radar pictures beamed back to New Mexico's Very Large Array showed white areas that researchers suspected was water ice.
  • The laser is weak — about the strength of a flashlight — but just powerful enough to distinguish bright icy areas from the darker, surrounding Mercury regolith
  • Messenger's neutron spectrometer spotted hydrogen, which is a large component of water ice. But the temperature profile unexpectedly showed that dark, volatile materials – consistent with climes in which organics survive – are mixing in with the ice
  • Organic materials are life's ingredients, though they do not necessarily lead to life itself
  • the presence of organics is also suspected on airless, distant worlds such as Pluto
  • suspect Mercury's water ice is coated with a 4-inch (10 centimeters) blanket of "thermally insulating material
Mars Base

NASA - Curiosity Roves Again - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...curiosity20121129.html

scibyte73 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • After several weeks of being stationary at the Rocknest site we began driving again on Sol 100
  • stone on the mission as we reached about a half a kilometer of total driving distance on the surface of Mars
  • going to be moving to the East to a place called Point Lake
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • looking for a target to perform our first ever drill on Mars
Mars Base

NASA - Rover Results at Rocknest - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...curiosity20121207.html

scibyte74 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 10 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • wrapped up our scientific study of Rocknest, which also means that we’ve completed the checkout and first scientific use of all our instruments on the rover and it truly is working great.
  • used out ChemCam laser and our APXS chemical sensor to do an initial technical analysis of the soil
  • using our Mastcam color cameras
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • MAHLI, our hand lens imager to take close up views of the soil to look at different particle sizes, shapes and colors and how they change with depth
  • analyzed it if our X-ray diffraction instrument that can identify minerals in the soil based on their unique crystal structure
  • a good amount of the material in the soil was not crystalline but that’s not a problem for our other laboratory, SAM.
  • results show a composition that is typical of Mars soils studied at other sites with perhaps some very simple carbon containing molecules and perchlorate salts.
  • haven’t yet seen any complex organic molecules but sand isn’t the best place to look
  • There won’t be any single image or measurement that’ll answer everything.
Mars Base

NASA - Curiosity Rover Gives Mars the Brush-Off - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...curiosity20130110.html

scibyte77

shared by Mars Base on 15 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • the team downloaded as much data as possible from Curiosity to free up the onboard data storage space to give her a fresh start to the New Year.
  • started off with a small 3-meter drive to an interesting feature called Snake River.
  • Over time, dust accumulated on all the rocks and it hides features, such as fissures, inclusions or pits that are of interest.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The tool has a set of spinning metallic brushes and this allows for the features to be exposed for unobstructed APXS or ChemCam observations
  • he team selected a rock for the first time use of the dust removal tool.
  • the team is searching for a suitable rock to test out the rotary-percussive drill.
  • it will be the first time that we will be drilling into a rock, acquire sample from deep within the rock, and also sort and transport it to the science instruments on board Curiosit
Mars Base

Tiny Sun Activity Changes Affect Earth's Climate | Solar Sunspot Cycle | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ar-activity-earth-climate.html

scibyte78 sun

shared by Mars Base on 18 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Even small changes in solar activity can impact Earth's climate in significant and surprisingly complex ways, researchers say.
  • The sun is a constant star when compared with many others in the galaxy
  • ome stars pulsate dramatically, varying wildly in size and brightness and even exploding
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • In comparison, the sun varies in the amount of light it emits by only 0.1 percent over the course of a relatively stable 11-year-long pattern known as the solar cycle.
  • "the light reaching the top of the Earth's atmosphere provides about 2,500 times as much energy as the total of all other sources combined,"
  • even 0.1 percent of the amount of light the sun emits exceeds all other energy sources the Earth's atmosphere sees combined, such as the radioactivity naturally emitted from Earth's core,
  • Many of the ways the scientists proposed these fluctuations in solar activity could influence Earth were complicated in nature.
  • , solar energetic particles and cosmic rays could reduce ozone levels in the stratosphere
  • in turn alters the behavior of the atmosphere below it, perhaps even pushing storms on the surface off cours
  • "In the lower stratosphere, the presence of ozone causes a local warming because of the breakup of ozone molecules by ultraviolet light,
  • When the ozone is removed, "the stratosphere there becomes cooler, increasing the temperature contrast between the tropics and the polar region
  • contrast in temperatures in the stratosphere and the upper troposphere leads to instabilities in the atmospheric flow west to east.
  • feed the strength of jet streams, ultimately altering flows in the upper troposphere, the layer of atmosphere closest to Earth's surface.
  • alter the distribution of storms over the middle latitudes
  • the sun might have a role to play in this kind of process. I would have to say this would be a very difficult mechanism to prove in climate models
  • climate scientist Gerald Meehl at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and his colleagues suggest that solar variability is leaving a definite imprint on climate, especially in the Pacific Ocean.
  • When researchers look at sea surface temperature data during sunspot peak years, the tropical Pacific showed a pattern very much like that expected with La Niña,
  • cyclical cooling of the Pacific Ocean that regularly affects climate worldwide, with sunspot peak years leading to a cooling of almost 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the equatorial eastern Pacific
  • peaks in the sunspot cycle were linked with increased precipitation in a number of areas across the globe, as well as above-normal sea-level pressure in the mid-latitude North and South Pacific.
  • Scientists have also often speculated whether the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year dearth of sunspots in the late 17th to early 18th century, was linked with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America experienced bitterly cold winter
  • This regional cooling might be linked with a drop in the sun's extreme ultraviolet radiation.
  • t, the sun could currently be on the cusp of a miniature version of the Maunder Minimum, since the current solar cycle is the weakest in more than 50 years.
  • Although the sun is the main source of heat for Earth, the researchers note that solar variability may have more of a regional effect than a global one
  • While the sun is by far the dominant energy source powering our climate system, do not assume that it is causing much of recent climate changes. It's pretty stabl
  • Ancient signals of climate such as tree rings and ice cores might also help shed light on the link between the sun and climate
  • Since variations in Earth's magnetic field and atmospheric circulation might disrupt this evidence on Earth,
  • a better long-term record of solar radiation might lie in the rocks and sediments of the moon or Mar
Mars Base

NASA - Curiosity Finds Calcium-Rich Deposits - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...curiosity20130118.html

scibyte78 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 19 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • images being returned by Curiosity show a diverse collection of interesting features, including sedimentary rocks, pebbles, cracks, nodules, and veins
  • vein features are seen as a bright white material
  • contain elevated levels of calcium sulfate, likely in the form of bassanite or gypsum
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Gypsum veins are also seen here on Earth and associated with water percolating through cracks and fractured rocks.
  • The team hopes to drill directly into one of the veins and place the powder into the SAM and ChemMin analytical instruments
  • give us detailed information about the composition of the material
  • On our way over to the drill site, we’re planning on using the rover’s wheels to crush some of these nearby veins and examine the freshly broken material
Mars Base

NASA beams Mona Lisa to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the moon (w/ video) - 0 views

phys.org/...lisa-lunar-reconnaissance.html

scibyte78

shared by Mars Base on 18 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • To clean up transmission errors introduced by Earth's atmosphere (left), Goddard scientists applied Reed-Solomon error correction (right), which is commonly used in CDs and DVDs.
  • Typical errors include missing pixels (white) and false signals (black). The white stripe indicates a brief period when transmission was paused
  • As part of the first demonstration of laser communication with a satellite at the moon, scientists with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) beamed an image of the Mona Lisa to the spacecraft from Earth.
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • he iconic image traveled nearly 240,000 miles in digital form from the Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) station at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument on the spacecraft.
  • By transmitting the image piggyback on laser pulses that are routinely sent to track LOLA's position, the team achieved simultaneous laser communication and tracking.
  • This is the first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances
  • "In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use
  • In the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide
  • Typically, satellites that go beyond Earth orbit use radio waves for tracking and communication
  • LRO is the only satellite in orbit around a body other than Earth to be tracked by laser as well.
  • Precise timing was the key to transmitting the image
  • divided the Mona Lisa image into an array of 152 pixels by 200 pixels
  • Every pixel was converted into a shade of gray, represented by a number between zero and 4,095.
  • Each pixel was transmitted by a laser pulse, with the pulse being fired in one of 4,096 possible time slots during a brief time window allotted for laser tracking
  • he complete image was transmitted at a data rate of about 300 bits per second.
  • The laser pulses were received by LRO's LOLA instrument, which reconstructed the image based on the arrival times of the laser pulses from Earth
  • This was accomplished without interfering with LOLA's primary task of mapping the moon's elevation and terrain and NGSLR's primary task of tracking LRO.
  • The success of the laser transmission was verified by returning the image to Earth using the spacecraft's radio telemetry system.
  • Turbulence in Earth's atmosphere introduced transmission errors even when the sky was clear.
  • To overcome these effects,
  • employed Reed-Solomon coding, which is the same type of error-correction code commonly used in CDs and DVDs.
  • The next step after LLCD is the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), NASA's first long-duration optical communications mission.
Mars Base

SpaceX's capsule arrives at ISS - 0 views

phys.org/...013-03-spacex-capsule-iss.html

scibyte84 dragon

shared by Mars Base on 03 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • 5:31 am EST (1031 GMT)
  • The capsule named Dragon was captured
  • The craft,
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • will now be inspected via cameras, brought to the Earth-facing port of the ISS's Harmony module and bolted into place by commands from mission control
  • SpaceX says it has 50 launches planned—both NASA missions and commercial flights—totaling about $4 billion in contracts
  • NASA also has a $1.9 billion resupply contract for the station with Orbital Sciences Corporation, which will launch the first test flight of its Antares rocket from a base in Virginia in the coming weeks
« First ‹ Previous 81 - 100 of 488 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page