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March 16 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on March 16th, died, and events - 0 views

  • Spacecraft docking
  • In 1966, the first US manned docking of two spacecraft was accomplished by the Gemini VIII. The Gemini space vehicle with command pilot was Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong and pilot Astronaut David R. Scott, was launched at 10:41 a.m. The primary objective of the scheduled three-day mission was to rendezvous and dock with the Gemini Agena target vehicle and to conduct extravehicular activities. Though this was accomplished, some problems developed that required the mission and its other planed objectives and experiments to be terminated early
  • Rocket
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  • In 1926, the first US liquid-fuel rocket flight was launched by Robert Goddard in a field in Auburn, Mass. He thought stable flight could be obtained by mounting the rocket ahead of the fuel tank. The tank was shielded from the flame by a metal cone and was pulled behind the rocket by the lines for gasoline fuel and oxygen. The design worked, but did not produce the hoped-for stability. The rocket burned about 20 seconds before reaching sufficient thrust (or sufficiently lightening the fuel tank) for taking off. During that time it melted part of the nozzle. It took off to a height of 41-ft, leveled off and within 2.5 seconds hit the ground 184 feet away, averaging about 60 mph. The camera ran out of film, so no photographic record of that flight remains.
Mars Base

MAVEN thunders to Space on Journey to Study Red Planet's Watery History and Potential f... - 0 views

  • NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) space probe thundered to space
  • Nov. 18
  • from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 1:28 p.m. EST atop a powerful Atlas V rocket
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  • It will take the spacecraft 10 months to reach the Red Planet, with arrival scheduled for Sept. 22, 2014
  • MAVEN’s purpose is to accomplish world class science after arriving at Mars and completing a check-out period before it can finally begin collecting science data
  • MAVEN will answer key questions about the evolution of Mars, its geology and the potential for the evolution of life
  • Mars was once wet billions of years ago,
  • Now it’s a cold arid world, not
  • hospitable to life
  • want to determine what were the drivers of that change
  • What is the history of Martian habitability, climate change and the potential for life
  • MAVEN will study Mars upper atmosphere to explore how the Red Planet may have lost its atmosphere over billions of years
  • It will measure current rates of atmospheric loss to determine how and when Mars lost its atmosphere and water
  • The MAVEN probe carries nine sensors in three instrument suites
  • The Particles and Fields Package,
  • contains six instruments to characterize the solar wind and the ionosphere of Mars.
  • The Remote Sensing Package,
  • will determine global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere.
  • The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer,
  • will measure the composition of Mars’ upper atmosphere.
  • Over the course of its one-Earth-year primary mission, MAVEN will observe all of Mars’ latitudes at altitudes ranging from 93 miles to more than 3,800 miles.
  • MAVEN will execute five deep dip maneuvers during the first year, descending to an altitude of 78 miles. This marks the lower boundary of the planet’s upper atmosphere.
Mars Base

Want to Phone Aliens? Help Get Your Messages On NASA's Pluto-Bound Spacecraft | Space.com - 0 views

  • New Horizons mission — launched toward Pluto in 2006
  • flies into interstellar space in about 30 years, according to SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
  • the diverse group of space fans have created a petition
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  • New Horizons Message Initiative
  • asking NASA officials to upload a yet-to-be-determined crowdsourced message from humanity onto the New Horizons craft after its encounter with the Pluto system
  • This website is an opportunity for anyone who is interested to sign a petition that asks NASA to approve the future use of the spacecraft
  • need formal permission from the agency and sub-support to make this happen
  • using some of the spacecraft's memory to store messages from earthlings beamed up to the probe
  • it might be possible to just reprogram about 100 megabytes of its memory and upload a new sights and sounds of Earth
  • When New Horizons gets past Pluto, [and] has done all its data
  • Before New Horizons launched, NASA officials discussed including an onboard message, but decided against it
  • small team on a tight budget
  • didn't want to see us being distracted from the project
  • NASA funds will not be used for the project, but initiative officials are asking for support from private individuals.
Mars Base

Spectacular Liftoff Thrusts China's First Rover 'Yutu' to the Moon - 0 views

  • China successfully launched its first ever lunar rover bound for the Moon’s surface aboard a Long March rocket
  • at 1:30 a.m. Beijing local time, Dec. 2, 2013 (12:30 p.m. EST, Dec. 1) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.
  • The name for the ‘Yutu’ rover – which translates as ‘Jack Rabbit’ – was chosen after a special naming contest involving a worldwide poll and voting to select the best name
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  • ‘Yutu’ stems from a Chinese fairy tale, in which the goddess Chang’e flew off to the moon taking her little pet Jade rabbit with her.
  • The Chang’e 3 lander will fire thrusters to enter lunar orbit on Dec. 6.
  • It is due to make a powered descent to the lunar surface on Dec. 14, firing thrusters at an altitude of 15 km (9 mi) for touchdown in a preselected area called the Bay of Rainbows or Sinus Iridum region.
  • If successful, the Chang’e 3 mission will mark the first soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Union’s unmanned Luna 24 sample return vehicle landed nearly four decades ago back in 1976.
  • Jack Rabbit measures 150 centimeters high and weighs approximately 120 kilograms
  • The rover and lander are equipped with multiple cameras, spectrometers, an optical telescope, radar and other sensors to investigate the lunar surface and composition
  • The rover is expected to continue operating for at least three months
  • The next step will be an unmanned lunar sample return mission, perhaps around 2020
Mars Base

April 11 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on April 11th, died, and events - 0 views

  • Apollo 13 launch
  • 1970, Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission, began with the successful launch of the spacecraft Odyssey from Cape Canaveral with crew James Lovell, Fred Haise, and John Swigert. Two days later, on 13 Apr disaster struck 200,000 miles from earth. A liquid oxygen tank exploded, disabling the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water. Swigert reported: “Houston, we've had a problem.” The lunar landing was aborted. After circling the moon, the crippled spacecraft began a long, cold journey back to earth with enormous logistical problems in providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow a safe return. On 17 Apr, with the world anxiously watching, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean
Mars Base

April 19 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on April 19th, died, and events - 0 views

  •  Indian satellite
  • In 1975, the first satellite built in India was launched from Volgograd Launch Station, Russia, on a Soviet Intercosmos C-1 rocket. It was named Aryabhata, after a noted 5th-century Indian mathematician. The 360-kg satellite had been built during 20 months by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Peenya, Bangalore, by a team led by Prof. U. R. Rao. Its shape was a 26-sided polygon, 1.4-m diam., with all faces covered in solar cells, except the top and bottom. It was designed to carry out experiments in X-ray astronomy, aeronomics, and solar physics, communicating with a 46-watt VHF transmitter. However, after only 4 days in orbit, a power failure ended any further experiments. It remained in orbit nearly 17 years, until it reentered the Earth's atmosphere on 11 Feb 1992
Mars Base

May 5 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on May 5th, died, and events - 0 views

  • In 2000, a conjunction of the five bright planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - formed a rough line across the sky with the Sun and Moon. Unfortunately, nothing was visible from the earth, because the the line of planets was behind the Sun and hidden in its brilliance. Such a conjunction last happened in Feb 1962 and will not happen again until Apr 2438. Throughout former history, a conjuction event was regarded with foreboding. However, now science can be dismissive. Donald Olson, an expert on tides at Southwest Texas State University, working with the assistance of a graduate student, Thomas Lytle, calculated the stress on the Earth caused by the Moon and eight planets has often been routinely greater, most recently on 6 Jan 1990
  • Conjunction of the planets
  • First U.S. space flight
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  • In 1961, America's first astronaut in space, Alan Bartlett Shepherd, Jr., made a 15 minute sub-orbital flight that reached an altitude of 115 miles, during which he experienced about five minutes of "weightlessness." He was launched in the 2,000-lb. capsule Freedom 7 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, by a Mercury-Redstone 3 rocket. The flight travelled 302 miles at a speed relative to the ground of of 4,500 mph. Although Shepard thus became the first American in space, the world's first human in space flight was Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, launched into orbit less than one month earlier, on 12 Apr 1961.
Mars Base

India's First Mars Probe Launch Set for Nov. 5 | Space.com - 0 views

  • India's 4.5 billion rupee ($73.5 million) mission to Mars, the nation’s first true interplanetary probe, is now slated to lift off Nov.
  • , Mangalyan will leave Earth orbit in November and cruise in deep space for 10 months using an onboard propulsion system
  • elliptical orbit around Mars
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  • ISRO says the primary objectives of the orbiter are to demonstrate India’s technological capability, look for signs of life and study the planet’s atmospheric composition
  • Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
Mars Base

Crew Launches to Space Station with Olympic Torch - 0 views

  • In an usual situation, when the new crew arrives, there will be nine crew members and three Soyuz vehicles at the ISS
  • The new crew is bringing the unlit torch along, then
  • the space station’s current crew, will take the torch out on a spacewalk,
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  • The real reason for the spacewalk is to do some routine Russian maintenance outside the station
  • Then,
  • three crew members will return
  • and they will bring the torch back home
  • The torch then will be given back to Olympic officials and it will be used in the opening ceremonies of the February games
  • There have not been nine crew members on the ISS since 2009.
Mars Base

June 7 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on June 7th, died, and events - 0 views

  • Ultrasound article
  • In 1958, a seminal article that launched the widespread use of ultrasound in medical diagnosis was published in The Lancet by Ian Donald, an English physician. After a few years developing the experimental use of ultrasound, Donald had applied it to treat patients in his hospital. In the Lancet article, Investigation of Abdominal Masses by Pulsed Ultrasound, he described how he was able to make the life-saving diagnosis of a huge, easily removable, ovarian cyst in a woman who had been diagnosed by others as having inoperable stomach cancer. Donald knew about sonar from his service in WW II, and industrial use of reflected ultrasound waves for flaw detection in materials, and with help from others, he launched its use in medicine
Mars Base

April 4 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on April 4th, died, and events - 0 views

  • Challenger
  • Mrs Potts sad iron
  • In 1983, the space shuttle Challenger roared into orbit on its maiden voyage. It was named after the British Naval research vessel HMS Challenger that sailed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during the 1870's. Challenger joined the NASA fleet of reusable winged spaceships and flew nine successful Space Shuttle missions. But on 28 Jan 1986, its tenth launch, the Challenger and its crew of seven were lost 73 seconds after launch when a booster failure resulted in the breakup of the vehicle
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  • In 1871, Mary Florence Potts of Ottumwa, Iowa patented the "Mrs. Potts' sad iron (No.113,448). The invention is a detachable handle for pressing irons. Thus a person could heat a number of iron bodies on a stove, using each in turn with one handle. It was widely manufactured and licensed in the U.S. and Europe with advertising featuring her picture. The body of the iron was cast hollow and was later filled with an insulating material, such as plaster of Paris, cement or clay. Mrs. Potts claimed in her patent that this material held the heat longer so that more garments could be ironed without reheating the iron. Three irons, one handle and one stand were sold as a set. Mrs. Potts' iron is well known by antique dealers and collectors
Mars Base

Surreal Images of Soyuz Landing in the Dark - 0 views

  • 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
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  • 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

DARPA Wants Amateur Help Tracking Space Junk | Space.com - 0 views

  • The U.S. military is launching a far-out neighborhood watch. But instead of warding off burglars, these  amateur watchdogs are tracking orbital debris and possible satellite collisions in Earth orbit.
  • The sky-monitoring project, called SpaceView, is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program that enrolls the talents of amateur astronomers
  • SpaceView should provide more diverse data from different geographic locations
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  • SpaceView is envisioned as a long-term partnership. This could potentially include time-sharing on telescopes, upgraded hardware at the astronomer’s site or financial compensation
  • SpaceView hopes to engage amateur astronomers by purchasing remote access to an already in-use telescope or by providing a telescope to selected astronomers
  • Telescopes used for astrophotography, asteroid hunting or simply high-quality astronomy are well suited for SpaceView’s needs
  • this new program provides the means to upgrade a skywatcher’s site to a state-of-the-art fully automated obser
  • in late 2013, the process will start to select the first dozen members of the project
Mars Base

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

  • Curiosity's mission was originally planned to last two years. It has now been extended indefinitely.
  • Curiosity
  • radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG),
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  • 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

Private Groups Set Sights on Deep Space | Mars, the Moon & Asteroids | Space.com - 0 views

  • The nonprofit Inspiration Mars Foundation announced
  • (Feb. 27) that it aims to launch two people on a 501-day Mars flyby mission in January 2018
  • main goals are to generate excitement about space travel and test out technologies that will be needed to put boots on Mars in the future
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  • mission would combine a commercial space capsule and inflatable module into a single spacecraft that will carry a man and a woman, possibly a married couple, to Mars and back. 
  • A number of companies and nonprofit organizations are developing plans to visit Mars, the moon and asteroids, for a variety of purposes
Mars Base

SpaceX company fixes Dragon capsule problem - 0 views

  • The problem may have been caused by a stuck valve or a line blockage
  • An hour later, the Dragon was raised with the thrusters to a safe altitude.
  • It was the first serious trouble to strike a Dragon in orbit.
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  • None of the four previous unmanned flights had any thruster issues
  • appeared to be a glitch versus a major concern.
  • Engineers for both SpaceX and NASA plan an exhaustive study before allowing the rendezvous to take place.
  • fresh fruit as well for the six station astronauts
  • Falcon 9 rocket performed "really perfectly" and that the thruster problem was isolated to the Dragon
  • On the previous flight in October, one of nine first-stage engines on the Falcon rocket shut down too soon
  • The capsule is designed to return to Earth with just two good sets of thrusters and, in "a super worst case situation," conceivably just one although it would be "a bit of a wobbly trip."
  • The newest Dragon is scheduled to spend more than three weeks at the space station before being cut loose by the crew
  • SpaceX plans to launch its next Dragon to the station in late fall.
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