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Mars Base

Apollo Rocket Engines Recovered from Atlantic Ocean Floor - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ered-from-atlantic-ocean-floor

scibyte87 apollo

shared by Mars Base on 22 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Last year, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos announced that he had located some of the Apollo F-1 rocket engines and planned to recover them
  • his Bezos Expedition team were successful in recovering engines that helped power Apollo astronauts to the Moon and have now brought “a couple of your F-1s home,”
  • There is no indication so far from Bezos of which flight these engines were from
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Last year
  • he said they had found the engines from Apollo 11, but it may be been difficult to determine exactly which flight the ones found were from
  • NASA launched 65 F-1 engines, five per flight, on 13 Saturn V boosters between 1967 and 1973
  • Supposedly there would be serial numbers to make the identification of which flight these engines were from
  • still on the ship, so perhaps the identification will come later
  • Each of the engines stands 19 feet tall by 12 feet wide and weigh over 18,000 pounds.
  • Five F-1 engines were used in the 138-foot-tall S-IC, or first stage, of each Saturn V
  • three weeks at sea, working almost 3 miles below the surface
  • photographed many beautiful objects in situ and have now recovered many prime pieces
Mars Base

Apollo 11′s Rocket Engines Found on the Bottom of the Ocean - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...und-on-the-bottom-of-the-ocean

scibyte40 Apollo

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has located the Apollo 11 F-1 rocket engines and plans to recover them
  • using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface
  • making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • don’t know yet what condition these engines might be in
  • they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years
  • The Saturn V used five F-1 engines in the first stage
  • F-1 is still the most powerful single-chamber liquid-fueled rocket engine ever developed
  • producing one and a half million pounds of thrust, burning 6,000 pounds of rocket grade kerosene and liquid oxygen every second
  • On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched and the five F-1s burned for just a few minutes, and then plunged back to Earth into the Atlantic Ocean.
  • the engines remain the property of NASA
  • hopes that the space agency would allow the recovered engines to be displayed at the Smithsonian or another museum
  • no public funding will be used to attempt to raise and recover the engines, as it’s being undertaken by him privately
Mars Base

SpaceX Replaces Faulty Rocket Valve for Space Station Flight | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ate-rocket-engine-repairs.html

scibyte47 SpaceX PrivateSpaceTravel iss

shared by Mars Base on 21 May 12 - No Cached
  • engineers have replaced a faulty engine valve
  • aborted its launch attempt a half-second before liftoff
  • Software did what it was supposed to do, aborted engine five, and we went through the remaining engine shutdown
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Technicians went out to the rocket's launch pad at the Air Force station's Complex 40 Saturday to examine the engines for signs of the issue's root cause
  • During rigorous inspections of the engine, SpaceX engineers discovered a faulty check valve on the Merlin engine
Mars Base

SpaceX Engineers Race to Repair Engines for May 22 Launch - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...pair-engines-for-may-22-launch

scibyte47 SpaceX PrivateSpaceTravel iss

shared by Mars Base on 21 May 12 - No Cached
  • Mars Base on 21 May 12
     
    SpaceX Engineers Race to Repair Engines for May 22 Launch
Mars Base

Newest Fusion Engine Is Powered On Star Trek Like Dilithium Crystals - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/ike-dilithium-crystals-2012-10

scibyte66 WarpDrive

shared by Mars Base on 05 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers at University of Huntsville in Alabama say they are using "Dilithium Crystals" in a new fusion impulse engine that could cut the travel time to Mars down to as little as six weeks, not the six months it takes now
  • "The fusion fuel we're focusing on is deuterium [a stable isotope of hydrogen] and Li6 [a stable isotope of the metal lithium] in a crystal structure.
  • researchers say that this type of engine is what NASA needs to propel human beings outside low-Earth orbit, out to places like Mars and even beyond.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • the military will probably get first dibs
  • projects is only possible from repurposing military nuclear testing equipment, essentially stuff America used to test nuclear weapons
  • , the sponsors of the fusion engine project have ties to military funding—the Aerophysics
  • still a few kinks to work out though
  • issue of harnessing fusion is prominent
  • also the question of turning the power generated by fusion into thrust for an engine
  • craft using the impulse drive would also need to be assembled in space
  • the technology has applications far beyond military or space exploration
Mars Base

How One Faulty Nitrogen-Purge Valve Forced SpaceX to Abort | Autopia | Wired.com - 0 views

www.wired.com/...cex-nitrogen-purge-valve-abort

scibyte47 SpaceX PrivateSpaceTravel iss

shared by Mars Base on 22 May 12 - No Cached
  • SpaceX engineers were able to trace the high-pressure problem to a valve that controls the flow of nitrogen used to purge the engine before ignition
  • check valve that allows the nitrogen purge prior to ignition in the Merlin engine was stuck open just before launch
  • stuck valve allowed “liquid oxygen to flow from the main injector [for the rocket engine itself] into the gas generator injector
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • stuck valve meant the liquid oxygen flowed into the gas generator injector, which led to the high pressure in engine five’s combustion chamber. The high pressure caused the flight computer to shutdown the engines, aborting the launch
  • the Falcon 9 may have been okay even if it had launched with the high pressure
Mars Base

SpaceX Aborts Thanksgiving Rocket Launch Due to Engine Trouble | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/hanksgiving-rocket-launch.html

scibyte111 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fired its engines and was moments away from liftoff from Cape Canaveral
  • but the commercial booster aborted the launch after computers detected the engines were too slow building up thrust.
  • Engineers raced to understand and resolve the problem, but they could not get comfortable enough to attempt the launch again
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Officials had not announced a new target launch date
  • SpaceX was targeting liftoff of the 22-story rocket at 5:39 p.m. EST (2239 GMT) Thursday, aiming to achieve the first Thanksgiving Day launch from Florida's Space Coast since 1959
  • The launch was pushed back to Thursday after multiple technical problems thwarted an initial launch attempt Monday
  • The rocket's mission is to place the SES 8 television broadcasting satellite into orbit
  • e highest altitude ever achieved by a SpaceX launch.
  • the flight is critical to SpaceX's future in the commercial launch market, in which it competes against stalwart launch vehicles from Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.
  • The Falcon 9 pressurized its propellant tanks, switched to internal power and ignited its nine Merlin 1D first stage engines a few seconds before the appointed launch time
  • the Falcon 9's computer-controlled countdown sequencer recognized a problem and called off the launch
  • As engineers continued to study the problem, SpaceX elected to restart the countdown to preserve a chance to launch Thursday
  • Ultimately, however, SpaceX said they could not get comfortable with the issue in time and ordered another hold with less than a minute left in the day's second countdown.
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
Mars Base

ISEE-3 Reboot Project Update: BULLSEYE! and More - Space College - 0 views

spacecollege.org/...-update-bullseye-and-more.html

scibyte133 ISEE-3

shared by Mars Base on 02 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • spacecraft has two transponders,
  • transponder A and Transponder B
  • Transponder B is normally the engineering telemetry transponder and transponder A is the ranging transponder
  • ...32 more annotations...
  • The final state of the spacecraft before was to have both of the transponders transmitters active and that is what people around the world have been tracking.
  • the spacecraft is set up with a lot of redundancy so you can use either transponder A or B to send telemetry or range
  • We tried several times to command the spacecraft's B transponder at 2041.9479 MHz into the mode where it normally sends engineering telemetry
  • did not work
  • Then we tried the same process on transponder A
  • modulation from the output of the telemetry system
  • The initial command was just to turn engineering telemetry on at 512 bits/second. This was successful.
  • successfully commanded the spacecraft into engineering telemetry mode.
  • initial verification
  • later
  • through the A transponder's receiver we commanded through the B transponder's command decoder to output engineering telemetry through transponder B's transmitter
  • verified so far the following systems on the spacecraft
  • 1. Transponder A receiver
  • 2. Transponder A's Command Decoder and Data Handling Unit
  • 3. Transponder B's Command Decoder and Data Handling Unit
  • tried to command the spacecraft into 64 bits/second mode, which was a mode that is much more complicated to set up and we did not get working successfully during the limited time that the spacecraft is visible from Arecibo
  • need to do this so that the smaller dishes at Morehead State and Bochum will have a positive signal margin so that we can record several hours of data
  • neither of the ISEE-3/ICE receivers had met their specification in testing
  • for -120 dbm sensitivity
  • receiver A was tested at about -114 dbm, and Receiver B at -111 dbm
  • after our end to end systems test we had an earthquake
  • how observations could be affected by vibrations in the dome structure as it translates during an observation and then that happened
  • later processed our first day's data dump from the spacecraft and we received 49 full frames of data at a bit rate of 512 bits/second
  • there were no errors on the downlink
  • milestones related to commanding and receiving data
  • 1. Successful commanding multiple times of ISEE-3/ICE
  • 2. Received engineering telemetry from both data multiplexing units on the spacecraft
  • 3. Successful demodulation on the ground of the received data, through the output of bits
  • 4. Verification of good data at 512 bits/sec, including frame synchronization, correct number of bits/frame, and with no errors, showing a very strong 30+ db link margin through Arecibo
  • If we can maneuver the spacecraft by June 17th we get the very small delta V number
  • this starts to climb rapidly as the spacecraft gets closer to the moon
  • cannot at this time rule out a lunar impact.
Mars Base

SpaceX's First Mission to the Space Station: How It Will Work | Dragon COTS 2/3 Flight ... - 0 views

www.space.com/agon-space-station-flight.html

scibyte47 SpaceX iss PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 12 - No Cached
  • SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule is due to deliver food, supplies and science experiments
  • SpaceX is one of two companies with NASA contracts for robotic cargo delivery flights (Virginia's Orbital Technologies Corp. is the other), but is the first to actually try a launch
  • Here's how the robotic mission is expected to play out:
  • ...50 more annotations...
  • Step 1: Launch
  • from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. SpaceX has use of the facility's Space Launch Complex 40
  • The initial ascent is powered by Falcon 9's first stage, consisting of nine SpaceX Merlin 1C rocket engines
  • Step 2: Main Engine Cut Off/Stage Separation
  • At a little before 180 seconds into the flight, the Falcon 9's first stage engines will cut off, and the first stage will drop off, falling back to Earth
  • the booster's second stage engines should start, further propelling the vehicle into orbit.
  • Step 3: Payload Separation
  • Around 9 minutes into the flight, the Dragon capsule should separate from Falcon 9's second stage and orbit on its own
  • capsule will deploy its solar arrays to start soaking up energy from the sun
  • Dragon is on its own and must maneuver using its onboard thrusters
  • Step 4: Orbital Checkouts
  • Dragon will begin a series of checkouts to make sure it's functioning as designed and ready to meet up with the station
  • test out its abort system to prove it can terminate its activities and move away from the space station if something goes wrong.
  • demonstrate its performance in free drift phase, with thrusters inhibited
  • Teams on the ground will lead the vehicle through tests of
  • Absolute GPS (AGPS) system, which uses global positioning system satellites to determine its location in space
  • Step 5: Fly-Under
  • fire its thrusters to perform a fly-under of the International Space Station
  • to 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) below the outpost
  • make radio contact with the station using a system called the COTS Ultra?high frequency Communication Unit to communicate.
  • Dragon will also test a secondary locator system called the relative GPS system, which uses the spacecraft's position relative to the space station to establish its coordinates
  • the six-person crew inside the orbiting laboratory will be monitoring their new visitor
  • use a crew command panel onboard the station to communicate with the capsule and send it a command to turn on a strobe light.
  • After completing the fly-under, Dragon will loop out in front, above and then behind the space station to position itself for docking.
  • Step 6: Rendezvous
  • during Dragon's fourth day of flight, the spacecraft will fire its thrusters again to bring it within 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) of the space station
  • there, NASA's Mission Control team in Houston will run through a "go-no go" call to confirm all teams are ready for rendezvous
  • If everyone is "go," Dragon will inch closer, to about 820 feet (250 meters) away from the space station.
  • series of final checkouts will be performed to make sure all of Dragon's location and navigation systems are accurate
  • If all looks good, Dragon's SpaceX control team on the ground will command the vehicle to approach the space station
  • When it reaches 720 feet (220 meters), the astronauts onboard the outpost will command the capsule to halt.
  • After another series of "go-no go" checks
  • approach to 656 feet (200 meters), and then 98 feet (30 meters), and finally 32 feet (10 meters), the capture point.
  • Step 7: Docking
  • Mission Control will tell the space station crew they are "go" for capturing Dragon
  • astronaut Don Pettit will use the station's robotic arm to reach out and grab Dragon, pulling it in to the bottom side of the lab's Harmony node, and then attaching it.
  • The next day, after more checkouts, the crew will open the hatch between Dragon and the station.
  • Over the coming weeks, the astronauts will spend about 25 hours unpacking the 1,014 pounds (460 kilograms) of cargo that Dragon delivers
  • none of the cargo is critical (since this is a test flight),
  • capsule will arrive bearing food, water, clothing and supplies for the crew.
  • Step 8: Undocking
  • Dragon is due to spend about 18 days docked at the International Space Station.
  • the station astronauts will use the robotic arm to maneuver the capsule out to about 33 feet (10 meters) away, then release it. Dragon will then use its thrusters to fly a safe distance away from the laboratory.
  • Step 9: Re-entry
  • About four hours after departing the space station, Dragon will fire its engines to make what's called a de-orbit burn
  • will set the capsule on a course for re-entry through Earth's atmosphere
  • spacecraft is equipped with a heat shield to protect it from the fiery temperatures of its 7-minute re-entry flight.
  • Step 10: Landing
  • due to splash down in the Pacific Ocean to end its mission
  • There, recovery crews will be waiting to collect the capsule about 250 miles (450 kilometers) off the West Coast of the United States
  • Mars Base on 21 May 12
     
    Mission Overview
Mars Base

Curiosity Once Again in Safe Mode - If Only Briefly - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...n-in-safe-mode-if-only-briefly

scibyte86 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 19 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Mars explorer once again went into standby status as the result of a software discrepancy — although mission engineers diagnosed the new problem quickly and anticipate having the rover out of safe mode in a couple of days.
  • a very straightforward matter to deal with
  • can just delete that file, which we don’t need anymore, and we know how to keep this from occurring in the future
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • automated fault-protection action, entering ‘safe mode’ at about 8 p.m. PDT (11 p.m. EDT) on March 16,
  • It did not switch to the A-side computer, which was restored last week and is available as a back-up if needed. The rover is stable, healthy and in communication with engineers.
  • safe-mode entry was triggered when a command file failed a size-check by the rover’s protective software
  • Engineers diagnosed a software bug that appended an unrelated file to the file being checked, causing the size mismatch
  • another hiatus — this one planned — will commence on April 4, when Mars will begin passing behind the Sun from Earth’s perspective
  • Mission engineers will refrain from sending commands to the rover during a four-week period to avoid data corruption from solar interference.
Mars Base

Jeff Bezos Plans to Recover Apollo 11 Rocket Engines From Ocean Floor | Wired Science |... - 0 views

www.wired.com/...jeff-bezos-apollo-11-engines

scibyte40 apollo

shared by Mars Base on 28 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Billionaire Jeff Bezos announced plans to recover from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at least one of the F-1 engines that carried the Apollo 11 rocket into space
  • If one engine is raised, he imagines the agency would make it available to the public at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C
  • Should he recover more than one, he has asked NASA to consider making the second one available at the Museum of Flight in Seattle
Mars Base

SpaceX May Try to Launch Private Spacecraft Tuesday | SpaceX Dragon | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-space-capsule-launch-2nd.html

scibyte47 SpaceX PrivateSpaceTravel iss

shared by Mars Base on 21 May 12 - No Cached
  • engine glitch on its Falcon 9 rocket in the last second before liftoff forced an abort
  • Engineers traced the issue to a failed check valve in the engine,
  • Mars Base on 21 May 12
     
    SpaceX Hopes to Launch Private Spacecraft to Space Station Tuesday
Mars Base

X-51 Waverider 'Scramjet' Test Flight Fails - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...der-scramjet-test-flight-fails

scibyte59 ScramJet

shared by Mars Base on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • flight of the X-51A Waverider scramjet ended abruptly after the experimental aircraft suffered a control failure and broke apart during an attempt to fly at six times the speed of sound
  • test flight took place off the coast of California and the X-51A was dropped from a B-52 bomber
  • faulty control fin prevented it from starting its unique “airbreathing” scramjet engine
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • The X-51 Waverider program is a cooperative effort of the Air Force, DARPA, NASA, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
  • technology would be successful enough to eventually be used for more efficient transport of payloads into orbit
  • Pentagon has touted its ability to deliver strikes around the globe within minutes.
  • craft was carried to about 15,240 meters (50,000 ft.) by a B-52 from Edwards Air Force Base in California
  • dropped over the Pacific Ocean
  • Designers were hoping the Waverider would reach Mach 6 or more
  • scramjet (short for “supersonic combustion ramjet”) is an air-breathing engine, where intake air blows through its combustion chamber at supersonic speeds
  • engine has no moving parts
  • oxygen needed by the engine to combust is taken from the atmosphere passing through the vehicle, instead of from a tank onboard
  • Some designers have predicted it could reach speeds of anywhere from Mach 12 to Mach 24. Mach 24 is more than 29,000 km/hour (18,000 miles per hour.) This could cut an 18-hour trip to Tokyo from New York City to less than 2 hours.
  • May 2010, the first test of the vehicle had sort of a “successful” flight of 200 seconds of autonomous flight
  • another test in 2011 failed
Mars Base

India's Mars Orbiter Mission Rising to Red Planet - Glorious Launch Gallery - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...planet-glorious-launch-gallery

scibyte109 SpacecraftUpdate India-MarsOrbiterMission

shared by Mars Base on 07 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) safely
  • injected into
  • initial elliptical Earth parking orbit following Tuesday’s (Nov. 5)
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • launch
  • ISRO engineers successfully completed the first of six orbit raising “Midnight Maneuver” burns at 01:17 hrs IST
  • Nov. 6
  • The goal is to gradually maneuver MOM – India’s 1st mission to the Red Planet – into a hyperbolic trajectory so that the spacecraft will
  • eventually arrive at the Mars Sphere of Influence after a 10 month interplanetary cruise
  • India’s PSLV rocket is not powerful enough to send MOM on a direct flight to Mars
  • The launch “placed MOM very precisely into an initial elliptical orbit around Earth
  • ISRO’s engineers devised a
  • procedure to get the spacecraft to Mars on the least amount of fuel via six “Midnight Maneuver” engine burns over the next several weeks – and at an extremely low cost
  • engine fires when
  • is at its closest point in orbit above Earth. This increases the ships velocity and gradually widens the ellipse
  • raises the apogee of the six resulting elliptical orbits around Earth that eventually injects MOM onto the Trans-Mars trajectory
  • expected to achieve escape velocity on Dec. 1 and depart Earth’s sphere of influence tangentially to Earth’s orbit to begin the 300 day
  • voyage
  • arrives in the vicinity of Mars on September 24, 2014
  • , NASA’s
  • MAVEN orbiter remains on target to launch
  • on Nov. 18 – from Cape Canaveral, Florida
  • Both MAVEN and MOM’s goal
  • study the Martian atmosphere , unlock the mysteries of its current atmosphere and determine how, why and when the atmosphere and liquid water was lost
  • MOM science teams will “work together” to unlock the secrets of Mars atmosphere and climate history
Mars Base

SpaceShipTwo Fires Rocket Engines for First Ever Supersonic Test Flight- Photos & Video - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...st-ever-supersonic-test-flight

scibyte92 scibyte93 SpaceShipTwo

shared by Mars Base on 30 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) commercial spaceliner named “Enterprise” lit up her hybrid rocket engines in flight and reached supersonic speeds for the first time in history
  • Monday, April 29, 2013 – in the skies over the Mojave Desert in California.
Mars Base

Specialized nerve fibers send touchy-feely messages to brain | Body & Brain | Scien... - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...touchy-feely_messages_to_brain

scibyte80 TouchMessages

shared by Mars Base on 31 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Some nerve fibers seem to love a good rubdown. These tendrils, which spread across skin like upside-down tree roots, detect smooth, steady stroking and send a feel-good message to the brain
  • The results are the latest to emphasize the strong and often underappreciated connection between emotions and the sensation of touch
  • “It may seem frivolous to be studying massage neurons in mice, but it raises a profound issue — why do certain stimuli feel a certain way?”
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • . Earlier studies in people suggested that a particular breed of nerve fibers detects a caress and carries that signal to the brain
  • scientists hadn’t been able to directly link this type of neuron to good feelings, either in people or in animals.
  • Directly linking these neurons with pleasure clarifies the importance of touch
  • The new study relied on mice genetically engineered so that a select population of nerve cells would glow when they sensed a caress
  • These neurons,
  • possessed the attributes of massage sensors, but they stubbornly refused to respond to touch in experiments in lab dishes
  • by touching the genetically engineered animals’ skin, the researchers were able to study these cells in live mice.
  • A harsher poke, with a more focused point of pressure, didn’t elicit a reaction from the cells
  • These neurons, which all carry a protein called MRGPRB4, seem tuned to detect a steady stroke
  • the researchers tested whether this stroke felt good to mice
  • the scientists used a different kind of genetically engineered mouse, one with caress-sensitive neurons that a drug could activate
  • When the researchers dispensed the drug in a particular room, the mice soon learned to prefer that room over others
  • associating it with the presumably enjoyable sensation of being stroked
  • not yet clear whether the nerve fibers in the mice have exact analogs in humans,
  • new view of caress detection
  • offers a deeper understanding of touch.
Mars Base

NASA's Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft Recovering from Glitch | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-kepler-spacecraft-glitch.html

scibyte80 Kepler

shared by Mars Base on 30 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • NASA's Kepler space telescope has resumed its search for alien planets after resting for 10 days to work out kinks in its attitude control system, mission officials announced
  • Jan. 29
  • Kepler went into a protective "safe mode" on Jan. 17 after engineers detected elevated friction levels in one of its reaction wheels
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Engineers spun the wheels down to zero speed, hoping the break would redistribute lubricant and bring the friction back down to normal
  • That phase is now over and Kepler is back in action, though it will take time to determine if the problem is solved
  • "During the 10-day resting safe mode, daily health and status checks with the spacecraft using NASA's Deep Space Network were normal."
  • When Kepler launched in March 2009, it had four reaction wheels — three for immediate use, and one spare
  • one wheel (known as number two) failed in July 2012, so a major problem with the currently glitchy wheel (called number four) could spell the end of the $600 million Kepler mission.
  • Over the next month, the engineering team will review the performance of reaction wheel #4 before, during and after the safe mode to determine the efficacy of the rest operation
  • The wheel has acted up before without causing serious problems
  • with a variety of friction signatures, none of which look like reaction wheel #2, and all of which disappeared on their own after a time
Mars Base

Neil Armstrong, 1st man on the moon, dies at 82 - 0 views

phys.org/...l-armstrong-1st-moon-dies.html

scibyte60 NeilArmstrong

shared by Mars Base on 25 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • "I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer," he said in February 2000 in one of his rare public appearances. "And I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession."
  • At the time of the flight's 40th anniversary, Armstrong again was low-key, telling a gathering that the space race was "the ultimate peaceful competition: USA versus U.S.S.R. It did allow both sides to take the high road, with the objectives of science and learning and exploration."
  • In all, 12 American astronauts walked on the moon between 1969 and the last moon mission in 1972
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Armstrong was born Aug. 5, 1930, on a farm in Ohio
  • He was licensed to fly at 16, before he got his driver's license
  • enrolled in Purdue University to study aeronautical engineering but was called to duty with the U.S. Navy in 1949 and flew 78 combat missions in Korea
  • He became a test pilot with what evolved into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, flying more than 200 kinds of aircraft from gliders to jets.
  • accepted into NASA's second astronaut class in 1962
  • backup commander for the historic Apollo 8 mission at Christmastime in 1968
  • In Wapakoneta, media and souvenir frenzy was swirling around the home of Armstrong's parents
  • People were pulling grass out of their front yard."
  • Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were given ticker tape parades in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles and later made a 22-nation world tour. A homecoming in Wapakoneta drew 50,000 people to the city of 9,000.
  • In 1970, Armstrong was appointed deputy associate administrator for aeronautics at NASA but left the following year to teach aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati.
  • remained there until 1979 and during that time bought a farm, where he raised cattle and corn. He stayed out of public view, accepting few requests for interviews or speeches.
  • "I can honestly say—and it's a big surprise to me—that I have never had a dream about being on the moon," he said
  • His family's statement
  • "Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.
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