Skip to main content

Home/ SciByte/ Group items tagged launch

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Mars Base

New Horizons Web Site - 0 views

pluto.jhuapl.edu/...piPerspective.php

scibyte30 newhorizons

shared by Mars Base on 21 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • January 19, 2012
  • launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on January 19, 2006
  • sixth anniversary
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • nine-year flight from launch to the beginning of Pluto encounter in January 2015 is two-thirds over
  • summer’s wakeup will be a “24 hour” near-encounter rehearsal
  • execute a (nearly) daylong segment of our Pluto encounter sequence on the spacecraft
  • New Horizons will make every maneuver, every scan and every observation that it actually will do around closest approach in 2015
  • ’ll check out every system (and its backup) on New Horizons
  • check out each of the seven scientific instruments
  • collect more science data than we have in any previous wakeup
  • update the software for our primary spacecraft command and control computer
  • removing a bug that occasionally causes it to reset
  • uplink almost two-dozen improvements to our onboard autonomous fault detection and automatic response software
  • Horizons team will use a wide variety of telescopes to intensively probe the space between Pluto and Charon for possible satellites, rings and other kinds of debris structures
  • begin to work through some 260-plus malfunction and contingency scenarios that we’ve identified as possible “gotchas” at Pluto
  • data New Horizons sends back — maps, spectra, plasma data, radio science and more — will provide a detailed view of Pluto and its system of moons
  • knowledge of Pluto will literally expand from a single fact sheet’s worth of information, to textbook-length tomes.
Mars Base

Russians desperately try to save Mars moon probe (Update) - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...cientists-mars-moon-probe.html

mars scibyte21 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • A Russian space probe aiming to land on a Mars moon was stuck circling the Earth after equipment failure Wednesday, and scientists raced to fire up its engines before the whole thing came crashing down.
  • successfully launched by a Zenit-2 booster rocket just after midnight Moscow time Wednesday
  • separated from the booster about 11 minutes later and was to fire its engines twice to set out on its path to the Red Planet, but never did
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • probably due to the failure of the craft's orientation system
  • Phobos-Ground was Russia's first interplanetary mission since a botched 1996 robotic mission to Mars, which failed when the probe crashed shortly after the launch due to an engine failure
  • Depending on the actual root of the failure, this is not an impossible challenge
  • the effort to restore control over the probe is hampered by a limited earth-to-space communications network that already forced Russian flight controllers to ask the general public in South America to help find the craft
  • Amateur astronomers were the first to spot the trouble when they detected that the spacecraft was stuck in an Earth orbit
  • About seven tons of nitrogen teroxide and hydrazine, which could freeze before ultimately entering, will make it the most toxic falling satellite ever
  • billed as the heaviest interplanetary probe ever may become one of the heaviest space derelicts to ever fall back to Earth out of control
  • The spacecraft is 13.2 metric tons (14.6 tons), with fuel accounting for a large share of its weight
  • Scientists had hoped that studies of Phobos' surface could help solve the mystery of its origin and shed more light on the genesis of the solar system. Some
Mars Base

Assembling Curiosity's Rocket to Mars - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...osity%E2%80%99s-rocket-to-mars

scibyte22 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 17 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The rocket is built by United Launch Alliance under contract to NASA as part of NASA’s Launch Services Program to loft science satellites on expendable rockets.
Mars Base

Cargo Ship Launches to ISS - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

iss japanese

shared by Mars Base on 21 Jul 12 - No Cached
Mars Base

Skydiver Baumgartner Takes Test Jump from 30 kilometers - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...s-test-jump-from-30-kilometers

scibyte56 SpaceSkyDive

shared by Mars Base on 26 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • practice jump
  • July 25, 2012)
  • prepare for his leap from the edge of space later this year where he hopes to not only break the sound barrier with his body, but also break the record for the longest freefall
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • rode his specially-made pressurized capsule via a helium balloon and jumped from an altitude of over 29,455 meters (96,640 feet), falling for 3 minutes, 48 seconds, reaching speeds of 862 km/h (536 mph).
  • this is the final milestone before his attempt of jumping from 36,500 meters (120,000 feet), to break the current jump record held by Joe Kittinger a retired Air Force officer – and Baumgartner’s current adviser and mentor — who jumped from 31,500 m (31.5 km, 19.5 miles) in 1960.
  • test launch was twice delayed due to bad weather
  • balloon took about 90 minutes to reach the desired altitude
  • floated down on his parachute for about eight minutes
  • landed in the New Mexico desert, just about 15 minutes by helicopter from his launch site
  • balloon over four times as large as the one that carried Baumgartner for the first test flight in March
  • did not provide an official date for the record-setting attempt
  • it is now subject to favorable weather conditions and critical post-jump assessments of the capsule and equipment
Mars Base

Curiosity Lands Safely On Mars - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...Curiosity_lands_safely_on_Mars

scibyte57 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 06 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • firing 76 pyrotechnic charges, dropping 150 kilograms of tungsten, deploying a massive parachute and being lowered to the planet’s surface from a rocket-powered sky crane
  • “It’s like us launching out of Kennedy Space Center, sending something here to the Rose Bowl, and having it land on the 50-yard line on a Frisbee,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
  • e $2.5 billion rover, probably the last mission of its size to launch in this decade
Mars Base

NASA - Signs Changing Fast for Voyager at Solar System Edge - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...voyager20120803.html

scibyte58 Voyager1

shared by Mars Base on 08 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • third key sign is the direction of the magnetic field, and scientists are eagerly analyzing the data to see whether that has, indeed, changed direction
  • Scientists expect that all three of these signs will have changed when Voyager 1 has crossed into interstellar space
  • preliminary analysis of the latest magnetic field data is expected to be available in the next month
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The increase and the decrease are sharper than we've seen before, but that's also what we said about the May data
  • Voyager 1, which launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun. Voyager 2, which launched on Aug. 20, 1977, is close behind, at 9.3 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) from the sun.
Mars Base

Tour Kennedy Space Center On Google Street View: Scientific American Podcast - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...episode.cfm

scibyte59 GrabBag

shared by Mars Base on 14 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • More than 6,000 new images of Kennedy Space Center have recently been added to Google Street View
  • a huge portion of the NASA Kennedy Space Center facility
  • In honor of the center’s 50th anniversary, Street View is adding more than 6,000 images of the Space Center
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • you can go into the facility, you can go into some of the large areas there, like the Vehicle Assembly Building. You can go down to the launch pad and actually go up several floors of the launch pad and see where the astronauts would walk and where they would go as they were boarding the shuttle
  • actually got to take a snapshot of these structures and these systems in place before all those transitions happened
  • Many of those facilities are going to be decommissioned or converted to different uses
  • So the opportunity to kind of capture that moment in Street View and preserve it, and make it accessible to people around the world, is I think really valuable and important
Mars Base

NASA - Astronaut's Home Away from Home - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...crew_quarters.html

scibyte35 FebMedia

shared by Mars Base on 24 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • take care of the astronauts 24/7 in the Astronaut Crew Quarters during preflight training and leading up to all shuttle launches
  • they work in shifts, with additional staff called in as needed to help cook and clean.
  • The crew is extremely busy when they come in," Hooper said. "We could not function without all of the group's efforts to take care of the astronauts."
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Those who work in the crew quarters include cooks, attendants, flight data file personnel, flight nurses and other astronauts supporting the crew.
  • Inside an area that dates back to the Apollo Program are facilities that have been upgraded throughout the years, including a kitchen, staff conference room, crew conference room, workout room, lounge, laundry room, computer room, suit-up room, dining room, medical facility, staff office and prime crew sleeping quarters.
  • access to crew quarters is limited to the staff and astronaut support personnel leading up to each launch
  • certified food handlers
  • team's typical day begins at 6 a.m. They get the kitchen going for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Laundry and inventory are completed. Maintenance trouble calls are tended to, and sleeping quarters and the beach house are cleaned
  • The staff operates under NASA Johnson Space Center's Health Stabilization Program. Twice yearly, the staff undergoes a physical exam and trains regularly on health issues and crew quarters procedures
Mars Base

Mars-Bound NASA Rover Carries Coin for Camera Checkup - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - 0 views

www.jpl.nasa.gov/...news.cfm

scibyte33

shared by Mars Base on 09 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Mars Base on 09 Feb 12
     
    instruments. The spacecraft, launched Nov. 26, 2011, will deliver Curiosity to a landing site inside Mars' Gale Crater in August to begin a two-year investigation of whether that area has ever offered an environment favorable for microbial life. The "hand lens" in MAHLI's name refers to field geologists' practice of carrying a hand lens for close inspection of rocks they find. When shooting photos in the field, geologists use various calibration methods. "When a geologist takes pictures of rock outcrops she is studying, she wants an object of known scale in the photographs," said MAHLI Principal Investigator Ken Edgett, of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. "If it is a whole cliff face, she'll ask a person to stand in the shot. If it is a view from a meter or so away, she might use a rock hammer. If it is a close-up, as the MAHLI can take, she might pull something small out of her pocket. Like a penny."
Mars Base

It's Alive! Russia's Phobos-Grunt Probe Phones Home | Phobos-Grunt Mars Mission | Mars ... - 0 views

www.space.com/signal-esa-ground-station.html

Phobos-Grunt scibyte23

shared by Mars Base on 23 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • the head of Russia's space agency, said after launch the mission could be salvaged until early December
  • many experts said the launch period has already expired, meaning Phobos-Grunt would have to wait until 2013 for another shot at Mars
  • Tuesday's brief contact did not produce telemetry to gain insight into the situation on-board the spacecraft
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Phobos-Grunt is likely functional and charging batteries through its solar panels
  • 23 November
Chris Fisher

NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...gJQAsT6UDV_print.html

nasa military telescopes

shared by Chris Fisher on 04 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • NASA officials stressed that they do not have a program to launch even one telescope at the moment, and that at the very earliest, under reasonable budgets, it would be 2020 before one of the two gifted telescopes could be in order. Asked whether anyone at NASA was popping champagne, the agency’s head of science, John Grunsfeld, answered, “We never pop champagne here; our budgets are too tight.”
  • The unexpected gift offers NASA an opportunity to resurrect a plan to launch a new telescope to study the mysterious “dark energy” that is causing the universe’s expansion to accelerate.
  • The two new telescopes — which so far don’t even have names, other than Telescope One and Telescope Two — would be ready to go into space but for two hitches
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • First, they don’t have instruments. There are no cameras, spectrographs or other instruments that a space telescope typically needs.
  • Second, they don’t have a program, a mission or a staff behind them. They’re just hardware.
  • “Instead of losing a terrific telescope, you now have two telescopes even better to replace it with,” Spergel said.
Mars Base

Teenagers play detectives on Interpol's new website - 0 views

phys.org/...eenagers-interpol-website.html

scibyte49 Interpol crime

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • Global police agency Interpol Tuesday launched a website to educate teenagers about crimes that can be committed over the Internet and tell them how they can protect themselves from the dangers
  • website also aims to teach teenagers about the 190-country-member organisation
  • focal point of the new site is a game "Interpol Junior Officer -- the Case of the Black Tattoo," in which players assume the role of an Interpol officer who travels worldwide, gathering clues to help local police track down an international gang involved in smuggling.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • launched in English and will eventually have Arabic, French and Spanish versions.
Mars Base

Commercial Spaceship Builders Ponder Future Without NASA Funding | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-space-taxis-nasa-funding.html

scibyte47 SpaceX iss PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 12 - No Cached
  • SpaceX is one of several aerospace firms who are competing for NASA funding under the third and final phase of NASA's commercial crew development program
  • Proposals for this stage of the competition, called Commercial Crew integrated Capability(CCiCap), require companies to present a complete launch system — rocket and vehicle — for consideration
  • company is facing some stiff competition from other aerospace firms, including Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • NASA is expected to announce at least two recipients for CCiCap funding awards in August.
  • even if SpaceX is not selected for the final round of NASA funding, a crewed version of the Dragoncapsule will not be mothballed
  • Boeing
  • willing to continue that at that level? I doubt it — maybe at some lower level, but I really don't know."
  • Alliant Techsystems (ATK)
  • the company will not stop developing the launch system if they are not selected by NASA.
Mars Base

NASA: Donated NRO Space Telescopes 'Came Out of the Blue' | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/y-space-telescopes-budget.html

scibyte51 hubble SpaceTelescope

shared by Mars Base on 15 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • A pair of space telescopes that were donated to NASA from the secretive National Reconnaissance Office could be repurposed for a wide variety of science missions
  • it will likely be years before the agency's budget can accommodate them.  
  • two spy satellite telescopes were originally built
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • but they were never used
  • June 4, NASA announced its acquisition of the telescopes, and the agency's intention to use them for future astronomical research
  • The two telescopes have main mirrors that measure nearly 8 feet wide (2.4 meters), making them comparable to the veteran Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched into orbit 22 years ago. Grunsfeld called the donated optical hardware "very high quality."
  • currently being stored in Rochester, N.Y., in facilities belonging to the hardware's manufacturer,
  • cost to keep them in storage is about $70,000 a year
  • not insignificant, but it's not something that's unmanageable
  • One possible application for the telescopes is as a base for NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which is being designed to hunt for dark energy
  • Given budget projections for the next several years
  • in an extremely confined fiscal environment
  • NASA does not anticipate being able to dedicate any funding to the newly acquired telescopes until the James Webb Space Telescope successfully launches
  • In the meantime, NASA is investigating different uses for the telescopes, and hopes to have input from the scientific community to guide the decision-making process
  • Mars Base on 15 Jun 12
     
    Grunsfeld co-hosted a town hall-style gathering Tuesday (June 12) to discuss NASA's budget and plans here at the 220th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Mars Base

Europe's Billion-Star Mapping Spacecraft Snaps 1st Photo (Image) | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-mapping-spacecraft-photo.html

scibyte120 ESA-Gaia

shared by Mars Base on 12 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • A new European spacecraft tasked with mapping a billion stars in the night sky  has beamed its first picture back to Earth.
  • its first test image
  • only covers an area less than 1 percent of Gaia's full field of view
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Gaia launched into space on Dec. 19 and it will spend five years studying the precise positions, motions and properties of 1 billion stars in the Milky Way
  • goal of creating the most accurate 3D map to date of our home galaxy
  • Gaia has two telescopes that can stare out at two different patches of the sky simultaneously
  • Gaia's camera,
  • is the highest-resolution image sensor ever flown in space with about 1 billion pixels.
  • it will measure an average of 2 million stars per hour,
  • about 50 gigabytes of data each day.
  • Gaia will eventually compile more than million gigabytes of data
  • about 200,000 fully loaded DVDs
  • it will be able to capture all one billion of its targets during its first six months in operation
  • the spacecraft will measure each of its stars an average of 70 times throughout the course of its five-year mission
  • will measure physical characteristics of the stars, including their brightness, temperature and chemical makeup
« First ‹ Previous 81 - 100 of 212 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page