Hasta La Gadget!

If you follow the space program at all, you probably know that NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, known as Curiosity, is on its way to the red planet. Curiosity is scheduled to touch down on the surface of Mars at 1:31 AM EDT on Monday, August 6. NASA has announced that Curiosity has made what is expected to be its final flight path adjustment before landing early Monday morning inside Mars’ Gale Crater.

To make the trajectory change, thrusters on the laboratory landing vehicle were fired for 6 seconds. The 6 second burst changed the spot where Curiosity will hit the Martian atmosphere by 13 miles. NASA is aiming to set Curiosity down in an 48 square mile area next to Mount Sharp, which rises from the center of Gale Crater.

NASA hopes to study the 3-mile high mountain because it seems to be made from different layers of sediment. NASA hopes studying those layers of up close will help determine whether Mars has ever had the ability to support life.

[via Discovery]

NASA is trying to bring it’s equipment into the 21st century and that includes updating its spacesuits. Scientists and engineers at NASA have been working to develop the new prototype called the Z-1. This is the new spacesuit that is being developed to replace the twenty-year old model that was first put into service in 1992. Is it just me or does this look like Buzz Lightyear’s suit?


Right now it is undergoing heavy testing. The Z-1 prototype spacesuit and portable life support system has its own airlock. With this new design, an astronaut crawls into the suit from the back, near the top. This is done through an airtight hatch that can latch on to a docking terminal or other vehicle such as a smaller spacecraft or rover unit. This design of course has many possibilities that the previous suits didn’t have. It is also more flexible and cuts down the amount of oxygen that an astronaut uses while in the suit.

I’m not sure why they are bothering since we don’t seem to want to send humans anywhere in space other than space stations, but hey, at least we have new suits if we change our minds. You can find a more detailed image of the Z-1 spacesuitover at Popular Mechanics.

[via Gizmag via Geek]

If you’ve ever played the video game Portal 2, you surely remember the floating robotic orb or personality core known as Wheatley. If you’re a fan of Wheatley, you will certainly appreciate this. An unnamed tech working at NASA has etched a likeness of Wheatley with the phrase “In spaaaaaaace!” underneath the likeness on the side of a component that actually went into space.

It’s not clear what the etched component is. Whatever the component is meant to do, it blasted into space aboard the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency H-II Transfer Vehicle that launched on Friday to resupply the ISS. Valve attributes the quote “In spaaaaaaace!” to Wheatley, but apparently another character in the game, the Space Core, said that phrase.

Valve said in a blog post, “thanks to an anonymous tech at NASA, Wheatley is actually going to actual space.” It’s cool when NASA and other scientists actually have a sense of humor and do things like this.

[via CollectSpace]

A robotic Russian cargo ship, Progress 47, was scheduled to dock at the International Space Station earlier this week, but failed to do so in testing its new automated docking system. The malfunction was not deemed as any major setback considering it had already docked so that it could unload supplies. The unmanned ship had separated from the orbiting laboratory and then tried to dock again with the new autopilot, which features smaller hardware components and was designed for better accuracy.

NASA officials explained in a statement that a passive abort was triggered as commands were being made to activate the system. A passive abort is designed to move spacecraft away to a safer distance during a failure as an automatic safeguard to protect the International Space Station. The Progress 47 was backed away by about 1.8 miles below the Space Station.

Experts are now faced with trying to figure out what exactly caused the glitch before a second test can be scheduled to happen. Another docking attempt should occur later this week, but only after a new Japanese cargo ship is scheduled to arrive on Friday.

[via Fox News]

Russian cargo ship fails in docking attempt with Space Station is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

NASA tested a large inflatable heat shield prototype on Monday that will help spacecraft slow down as soon as they enter a planet’s atmosphere. The heat shield (or aersoshell) was made of high-tech balloons and was dubbed an “unqualified success” after the initial test was completed, which saw it plunge through Earth’s atmosphere at speeds up to 7,600 mph. It will help shape new re-entry systems for spacecraft in the future, including those that land on Mars.

The team at NASA has been working on the idea for almost nine years now, and future heat shield developments could be able to land bigger masses, such as payloads with heavy cargo and supplies. The atmosphere on Mars is thin and kind of tricky, so scientists obviously can’t afford to ignore it when it comes to safe landing.

The 680-pound IRVE-3 heat shield has an inflation system that pumps nitrogen into the aeroshell so that it expands in the shape of a mushroom, protecting the space capsule from the heat generated by the friction of re-entering the atmosphere. The entire flight was recorded as the capsule came back to Earth, which was able to handle 20 Gs of force and withstand temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

[via Space.com]

NASA tests inflatable heat shield prototype is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.