NASA celebrates the 50th Anniversary of John Glenn’s orbital space flight. Glenn’s flight ushered in a new era for space travel.
Join the 50th Anniversary of Orbital Space Flight
Rhea Before Titan
Craters appear well defined on icy Rhea in front of the hazy orb of the much larger moon Titan in this Cassini spacecraft view of these two Saturn moons.Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemispheres of Rhea and Titan. North on the moons is up and rotated 13 degrees to the left. The limb, or edge of the visible disk, of Rhea is slightly overexposed in this view.
The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 10, 2011. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometers) from Titan and at a Sun-Titan-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 109 degrees. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 810,000 miles (1.3 million kilometers) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 109 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (12 kilometers) per pixel on Titan and 5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel on Rhea.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Full Moon Over Washington
A United States Marine Corps helicopter is seen flying through this scene of the full moon and the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, from Arlington National Cemetery.Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
NASA's Juno Spacecraft Refines its Path to Jupiter
Mission Status Report
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's solar-powered Juno spacecraft successfully refined its flight path Wednesday with the mission's first trajectory correction maneuver. The maneuver took place on Feb. 1. It is the first of a dozen planned rocket firings that, over the next five years, will keep Juno on course for its rendezvous with Jupiter.
"We had a maneuver planned soon after launch but our Atlas V rocket gave us such a good ride we didn't need to make any trajectory changes," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It is good to get another first under our belt. This burn couldn't have gone any better."
The trajectory correction maneuver, which adjusts the spacecraft's flight path, began at 10:10 a.m. PST (1:10 p.m. EST) on Feb. 1. The Juno spacecraft's thrusters fired for 25 minutes, consumed about 6.9 pounds (3.11 kilograms) of fuel and changed the spacecraft's speed by 3.9 feet, or 1.2 meters, per second. The next big maneuver for Juno will occur in late August of 2012 when Juno executes its first of two deep space maneuvers to set the stage for its Earth flyby – and gravity assist – on its way to Jupiter.
Ebb sends home video of far side of the Moon
PASADENA, Calif. -- A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study.
GRAIL consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each of which is equipped with a MoonKAM. The images were taken as part of a test of Ebb's MoonKAM on Jan. 19. The GRAIL project plans to test the MoonKAM aboard Flow at a later date.
NASA Releases First Multi-Player Facebook Game
01.30.12
Space Race Blastoff, NASA's first online game for the social media age.
Who was the first American to walk in space? Who launched the first liquid-fueled rocket? In what movie did O.J. Simpson play NASA astronaut?
If you know the answers to these questions, or are just curious to find out, you're ready to play Space Race Blastoff, NASA's first online game for the social media age.
Available through its own Facebook page, Space Race Blastoff pits players in remote locations in a test of their knowledge of NASA history, technology, science and pop culture. Players who correctly answer questions earn virtual badges depicting NASA astronauts, spacecraft and astronomical objects. Players also earn points they can use to obtain additional badges to complete sets that earn premium badges.
"We're hoping Space Race Blastoff opens up NASA's history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media," said David Weaver, NASA's associate administrator for communications. "We're really excited to see what the interest will be."
NASA chose to make the game available through Facebook to take advantage of the social media site's large audience and enable players to compete against others. Individuals can also play solo games.
Once in the game, players can choose an avatar and answer 10 multiple-choice questions. Each correct answer earns 100 points, with a 20-point bonus to the player who answers first. The winner advances to the bonus round to answer one additional question for more points. Answering the bonus question earns the player a badge, which may depict an astronaut, a spacecraft, a planet or other person or object. Additional badges can be obtained for 1,500 points.
The game, developed by Scott Hanger, Todd Powell and Jamie Noguchi of NASA's Internet Services Group in the Office of Communications, is available via its.
If you know the answers to these questions, or are just curious to find out, you're ready to play Space Race Blastoff, NASA's first online game for the social media age.
Available through its own Facebook page, Space Race Blastoff pits players in remote locations in a test of their knowledge of NASA history, technology, science and pop culture. Players who correctly answer questions earn virtual badges depicting NASA astronauts, spacecraft and astronomical objects. Players also earn points they can use to obtain additional badges to complete sets that earn premium badges.
"We're hoping Space Race Blastoff opens up NASA's history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media," said David Weaver, NASA's associate administrator for communications. "We're really excited to see what the interest will be."
NASA chose to make the game available through Facebook to take advantage of the social media site's large audience and enable players to compete against others. Individuals can also play solo games.
Once in the game, players can choose an avatar and answer 10 multiple-choice questions. Each correct answer earns 100 points, with a 20-point bonus to the player who answers first. The winner advances to the bonus round to answer one additional question for more points. Answering the bonus question earns the player a badge, which may depict an astronaut, a spacecraft, a planet or other person or object. Additional badges can be obtained for 1,500 points.
The game, developed by Scott Hanger, Todd Powell and Jamie Noguchi of NASA's Internet Services Group in the Office of Communications, is available via its.
Facebook page: http://apps.facebook.com/spacerace.
Blue Marble
A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.Suomi NPP is NASA's next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.
Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.
Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring
M8.7 Solar Flare and Earth Directed CME
01.23.12
The sun erupted late on January 22, 2012 with an M8.7 class flare, an earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), and a burst of fast moving, highly energetic protons known as a "solar energetic particle" event. The latter has caused the strongest solar radiation storm since September 2005 according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.
Space Bubbles Offer Glimpse at Our Sun's Evolution
by Charles Q. Choi, SPACE.com Contributor
Date: 17 January 2012 Time: 09:46 AM ET
This enormous section of the Milky Way galaxy is a mosaic of images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus are featured in this 1,000-square degree expanse. These constellations, named after an ancient queen and king of Ethiopia in Greek mythology, are visible in the northern sky every night of the year as seen from most of the United States.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Bubbles full of stars are now shedding light on how our sun and its siblings might have formed, scientists find.
Stars like our sun likely formed in clusters associated with massive stars. These huge stars are thought to form in the centers of giant clouds of cold gas maybe a million times the mass of our sun, with the hot winds these massive stars give off carving out bubbles within these clouds.
"Almost all the stars in the galaxy formed in hot bubbles where huge stars formed," said the study's lead author, Xavier Koenig, at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
How other stars like our sun formed next, however, remains debated. One idea, dubbed the "collect-and- collapse" model, suggested that by pushing matter outward, the hot winds from massive stars eventually compress enough material at the outer regions of these clouds to form into stars.
Voyager Instrument Cooling After Heater Turned off
Voyager mission status report
PASADENA, Calif. -- In order to reduce power consumption, mission managers have turned off a heater on part of NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, dropping the temperature of its ultraviolet spectrometer instrument more than 23 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit). It is now operating at a temperature below minus 79 degrees Celsius (minus 110 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature that the instrument has ever endured. This heater shut-off is a step in the careful management of the diminishing electrical power so that the Voyager spacecraft can continue to collect and transmit data through 2025.
At the moment, the spectrometer continues to collect and return data. It was originally designed to operate at temperatures as low as minus 35 degrees Celsius (minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit), but it has continued to operate in ever chillier temperatures as heaters around it have been turned off over the last 17 years. It was not known if the spectrometer would continue working, but since 2005, it has been operating at minus 56 degrees Celsius (69 degrees Fahrenheit.) So engineers are encouraged that the instrument has continued to operate, even after the nearby heater was turned off in December. (The spectrometer is likely operating at a temperature somewhat lower than minus 79 degrees Celsius, or minus 110 degrees Fahrenheit, but the temperature detector does not go any lower.)
Hubble Solves Mystery on Source of Supernova in Nearby Galaxy
Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have solved a longstanding mystery on the type of star, or so-called progenitor, which caused a supernova seen in a nearby galaxy. The finding yields new observational data for pinpointing one of several scenarios that trigger such outbursts.
This image of Type Ia Supernova Remnant 0509-67.5 was made by combining data from two of NASA’s Great Observatories. The result shows soft green and blue hues of heated material from the X-ray data surrounded by the glowing pink optical shell, which shows the ambient gas being shocked by the expanding blast wave from the supernova. Credit: NASA, ESA, and B. Schaefer and A. Pagnotta (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge); Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, SAO, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Hughes (Rutgers University)
Spacecraft Completes Biggest Maneuver
Artist's concept illustrations show (left) the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft during its voyage from Earth to Mars and (right) the mission's rover, Curiosity, working on Mars after landing. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Mission Status Report
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft successfully refined its flight path Wednesday with the biggest maneuver planned for the mission's journey between Earth and Mars.
"We've completed a big step toward our encounter with Mars," said Brian Portock of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., deputy mission manager for the cruise phase of the mission. "The telemetry from the spacecraft and the Doppler data show that the maneuver was completed as planned."
The Mars Science Laboratory mission will use its car-size rover, Curiosity, to investigate whether the selected region on Mars inside Gale Crater has offered environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and favorable for preserving clues about whether life existed.
Engineers had planned today's three-hour series of thruster-engine firings to accomplish two aims: to put the spacecraft's trajectory about 25,000 miles (about 40,000 kilometers) closer to encountering Mars and to advance the time of the encounter by about 14 hours, compared with the trajectory following the mission's Nov. 26, 2011, launch.
Herschel and Spitzer See Nearby Galaxies' Stardust
PASADENA, Calif. – The cold dust that builds blazing stars is revealed in new images that combine observations from the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions; and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The new images map the dust in the galaxies known as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two of the closest neighbors to our own Milky Way galaxy.
This new image shows the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI
Mission Status Report
PASADENA, Calif. -- An engine firing on Jan. 11 will be the biggest maneuver that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft will perform on its flight between Earth and Mars.
The action will use a choreographed sequence of firings of eight thruster engines during a period of about 175 minutes beginning at 3 p.m. PST (6 p.m. EST or 2300 Universal Time). It will redirect the spacecraft more precisely toward Mars to land at Gale Crater. The trajectory resulting from the mission's Nov. 26, 2011, launch intentionally misses Mars to prevent the upper stage of the launch vehicle from hitting the planet. That upper stage was not cleaned the way the spacecraft itself was to protect Mars from Earth's microbes.
The 2012 FIRST Robotics Kick-Off Event
The 2012 FIRST Robotics Kick-Off Event is taking place this weekend at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. NASA TV will broadcast the event live. During the broadcast, FIRST founder Dean Kamen and designers of the annual challenge will reveal the competition scenario for 2012. This kicks off a six-week design and building frenzy for more than 2,000 teams, or 50,000 students and engineering mentors in this year's competition.
Sun's Twisting Plasma Tentacle Credit: NASA/SDO/GSFCNASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured this eruption from March 19, 2011 as a prominence became unstable and blasted into space with a distinct twisting motion.
PASADENA, Calif. -- The second of NASA's two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has successfully completed its planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit. Working together, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the moon as never before.
"NASA greets the new year with a new mission of exploration," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The twin GRAIL spacecraft will vastly expand our knowledge of our moon and the evolution of our own planet. We begin this year reminding people around the world that NASA does big, bold things in order to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown."
GRAIL-B achieved lunar orbit at 2:43 p.m. PST (5:43 p.m. EST) today. GRAIL-A successfully completed its burn yesterday at 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST). The insertion maneuvers placed the spacecraft into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with an orbital period of approximately 11.5 hours. Over the coming weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period to just under two hours. At the start of the science phase in March 2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers).
Quadrantids Will Create Brief, Beautiful Show on Jan. 4
The 2012 Quadrantids, a little-known meteor shower named after an extinct constellation, will present an excellent chance for hardy souls to start the year off with some late-night meteor watching.
Peaking in the wee morning hours of Jan. 4, the Quadrantids have a maximum rate of about 100 per hour, varying between 60-200. The waxing gibbous moon will set around 3 a.m. local time, leaving about two hours of excellent meteor observing before dawn. It's a good thing, too, because unlike the more famous Perseid and Geminid meteor showers, the Quadrantids only last a few hours -- it's the morning of Jan. 4, or nothing.
NASA's Twin Grail Spacecraft Reunite in Lunar Orbit
Artist concept of GRAIL-B performing its lunar orbit insertion burn. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
PASADENA, Calif. -- The second of NASA's two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has successfully completed its planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit. Working together, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the moon as never before.
"NASA greets the new year with a new mission of exploration," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The twin GRAIL spacecraft will vastly expand our knowledge of our moon and the evolution of our own planet. We begin this year reminding people around the world that NASA does big, bold things in order to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown."
GRAIL-B achieved lunar orbit at 2:43 p.m. PST (5:43 p.m. EST) today. GRAIL-A successfully completed its burn yesterday at 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST). The insertion maneuvers placed the spacecraft into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with an orbital period of approximately 11.5 hours. Over the coming weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period to just under two hours. At the start of the science phase in March 2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers).
NASA and Navy Veteran John Young
NASA salutes our country's veterans this Veteran's Day 2011.
In today's image, John Young, astronaut and Navy veteran, salutes the U.S. flag at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity (EVA-1). Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, jumps up from the lunar surface as astronaut and Air Force veteran, Charles M. Duke Jr., lunar module pilot, took this picture.
The Lunar Module (LM) "Orion" is on the left. The Lunar Roving Vehicle is parked beside the LM. The object behind Young in the shade of the LM is the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. Stone Mountain dominates the background in this lunar scene.
In today's image, John Young, astronaut and Navy veteran, salutes the U.S. flag at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity (EVA-1). Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, jumps up from the lunar surface as astronaut and Air Force veteran, Charles M. Duke Jr., lunar module pilot, took this picture.
The Lunar Module (LM) "Orion" is on the left. The Lunar Roving Vehicle is parked beside the LM. The object behind Young in the shade of the LM is the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph. Stone Mountain dominates the background in this lunar scene.
A gathering of SpaceX’s own military veterans pictured here in our Hawthorne headquarters. Behind them is our
space-flown Dragon spacecraft that successfully returned from Earth orbit in December 2010.
space-flown Dragon spacecraft that successfully returned from Earth orbit in December 2010.
VETERANS DAY | NOVEMBER 11, 2011
Today SpaceX would like to recognize all those who have served, including the more than 100 who we proudly call a part of the SpaceX family. We stand in awe of the dedication and sacrifice of America’s military, past and present, and stand ready to do all we can to support our men and women in uniform.
Current, separated and retired military personnel make up 7% of the SpaceX workforce, and we are dedicated to growing that percentage. Please visit our careers page for more information on job opportunities at SpaceX.
Cave Astronauts Explore Deep Inside Earth to Simulate Spaceflight
On Friday (Nov. 4), six volunteer astronauts will "return" to Earth from a mock mission to Mars, after spending 18 months isolated from the world in a special facility in Moscow.
But the Mars500 crewmembers are not the only ones who have faced extreme conditions in simulating a real space mission. An international team of five astronauts recently completed a spaceflight training mission in Europe that required them to live and work in a dark and isolated cave for nearly a week.
Amazing Nature Photos
Stellar images from National Geographic readers
In this image, Cordon del Caulle erupts in Chile.
Link to see more Photos.
Space station welcomes Russian cargo ship arrival
The Progress M-13M spacecraft linked up to the station's Pirs module at 7:41 a.m. EDT (1141 GMT) while orbiting 247 miles above northern China.
"On the 11th anniversary of the arrival of the first residents of the International Space Station, supplies have arrived to fortify the station for the Expedition 29 crew and beyond," NASA commentator Rob Navias called from Houston.
Hooks and latches were engaged a few minutes after docking to firmly secure the 24-foot-long craft to the station where it will remain parked through late January.
The Expedition 29 crew of commander Mike Fossum, cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa plan to open hatches and enter the Progress later today.
The "dry" cargo includes 3,108 pounds of equipment, food, clothing, life support system gear, 1,653 pounds of propellant to replenish reservoirs that feed the Russian maneuvering thrusters, 926 pounds of water and some 110 pounds of oxygen and air for the station's atmosphere.
This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 was generated from data taken in April 2010 by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico
NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon's orbit on Nov. 8. Scientists are treating the flyby of the 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity – allowing instruments on "spacecraft Earth" to scan it during the close pass.
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
New observations by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, show there are significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought. The findings also indicate NASA has found more than 90 percent of the largest near-Earth asteroids, meeting a goal agreed to with Congress in 1998.
Student Plant Growth Investigation on the International Space Station
Ground Control Plants vs. Plants in Space, First Planting (Brassica rapa)
For Plants in Space investigation information, go to www.BioEdOnline.org
A Quintet of Saturn's Moons
A quintet of Saturn's moons come together in the Cassini spacecraft's field of view for this portrait.
Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) is on the far left. Pandora (81 kilometers, or 50 miles across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring near the middle of the image. Brightly reflective Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across) appears above the center of the image. Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across), is bisected by the right edge of the image. The smaller moon Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles across) can be seen beyond Rhea also on the right side of the image.
This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. Rhea is closest to Cassini here. The rings are beyond Rhea and Mimas. Enceladus is beyond the rings.
Expedition 28 Lands
The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko, and Flight Engineers Ron Garan, and Alexander Samokutyaev in a remote area outside of the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Friday, Sept. 16, 2011. NASA Astronaut Garan, Russian Cosmonauts Borisenko and Samokutyaev are returning from more than five months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 27 and 28 crews.
Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
It's a real-life Tatooine.Link to Movie of Planet
A spectacle made popular by the "Star Wars" saga — a planet with two suns — has now been confirmed in space for the first time, astronomers revealed.
The planet, dubbed Kepler-16(AB)-b, passes in front of both stars in view of the satellite, regularly dimming their light. Each star also eclipses its companion as they orbit each other. Altogether, these motions allow scientists to precisely calculate the masses, radii and trajectories of all three bodies.
The newfound planet keeps a distance from its stars nearly three-quarters that of the distance between the Earth and the sun. It is somewhat like Saturn in size, although nearly 50 percent denser, suggesting it is richer in heavy elements.
NASA Announces Design for New Deep Space Exploration System
09.14.11
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