Hasta La Gadget!

I’m pretty sure that many people have trouble understanding stellar distances. Even Mars, one of the closest planets, is really far away by Earthly measurement standards. Check out this great and simple web animation on how far away Mars actually is from Earth.

The Distance to Mars website was made by David Paliwoda and Jesse Williams, and it shows you just how far away Mars really is. Just click the down arrow on the website, and start your accelerated ride to the red planet, as measured in pixels.

There are plenty of different proposals for manned missions to Mars, but they face a lot of challenges, due to the vast distances involved. At the current level of technology, it would take astronauts about 150 days to travel to Mars one way. The date for a manned expedition hasn’t been confirmed, but there are a couple of windows when Mars would be at its closest to Earth. The nearest one is in the 2030s followed by one in the 2050s.

[via SwissMiss]

NASA partner Boeing has announced that it has completed its launch vehicle adapter preliminary design review. The launch vehicle adapter is the component of Boeing’s rocket design that would attach a crew capsule to the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The completion of the preliminary design review is one of six performance milestones Boeing has to complete for this particular device.

The preliminary design review is the first step for Boeing in getting its device approved to participate in NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability initiative. Boeing says that it is on track to complete all 19 of its required milestones during NASA’s initiative. In addition to Boeing, there are two other companies working with NASA on this particular initiative.

NASA’s goal with this initiative is to lead the way for the availability of human spaceflight services from NASA. NASA lost the ability to put astronauts into orbit when the space shuttle fleet was retired. The Boeing component that has completed the preliminary design review is the Launch Vehicle Adapter. This is a critical component that allows Boeing’s space capsule designed to carry astronauts to be attached to the tip of an existing rocket.

The adapter specifically attaches Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation-100, also known as CST-100, spacecraft to the Atlas V rocket. The adapter attaches the capsule above the rocket’s second stage. Boeing has also completed two other milestones for this program recently including the Engineering Release 2.0 software release and the Landing and Recovery Ground Systems and Ground Communications design review.

[via Space-Travel]

Boeing completes launch vehicle adapter preliminary design review is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When you think of the vast emptiness of space, one of the first things to come to mind is probably violent decompression. But is the vacuum of space powerful enough that it could suck out an entire ocean through some sort of gigantic space straw? More »

NASA has decided on two “low-cost” missions that it plans on launching in 2017. The first project involves the MIT-led Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) project, and the second project involves the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), which will be mounted onto the International Space Station. NASA will spend a total of $255 million for both projects.

MIT’s TESS project will receive $200 million in funding. The TESS project will use an array of wide-field cameras to perform an all-sky survey. It will scan nearby stars for exoplanets. Its primary focus are planets that are similar in size to Earth. TESS will note when these planets transit their host stars from its perspective. George Ricker, a senior research scientist at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI), stated,

TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission. It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth.

NASA’s second project, NICER, will be mounted onto the International Space Station. It will observe and measure the variability of cosmic X-ray sources, also known as as X-ray timing. The goal for NICER is to allow scientists to better understand neutron stars by exploring the states of matter within the stars and exploring their interior and exterior compositions. The project will be drastically cheaper than the TESS project, costing NASA about $55 million to fund. NICER’s principal investigator is Keith Gendreau of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. TESS’s George Ricker will also be a partner in the NICER Mission.

These projects are part of NASA’s Explorer program. These are frequent, low-cost investigations that are relevant to NASA’s astrophysics and heliophysics programs. The first program launched in 1958, which discovered the Earth’s radiation belts. Over 90 more missions have been launched since then. John Grunsfeld, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science in Washington stated,

With these missions we will learn about the most extreme states of matter by studying neutron stars, and we will identify many nearby star systems with rocky planets in the habitable zone for further study by telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope.

[via Space.com]

NASA chooses TESS and NICER projects for 2017 missions is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

March was an eventful month for NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover, which experienced a variety of issues and delays, some due to problems with the rover itself and others due to conditions outside of anyone’s control. Those issues have been resolved, but now starting today a communication moratorium has gone into effect, and Curiosity will be on its own, perhaps taking the most exotic vacation ever, until May 1.

This has been planned for some time now, and is due to planetary alignment called the Mars solar conjunction in which the Sun plants itself between our blue marble and Mars. Said NASA recently about the situation: “The moratorium is a precaution against possible interference by the sun corrupting a command sent to the rover.” The other rover and orbiters will also go without orders for awhile, but not as long.

While this is the perfect opportunity for Curiosity to get some R&R time after traveling across space and successfully completing missions, it seems the rover will still be busy with its tasks, doing science work alone with its onboard equipment until communications resume and orders are given. Commands were sent before the moratorium went into effect.

In case you missed it, the Curiosity rover suffered an issue with one of its on-board computers last month, prompting it to switch to its secondary computer and safe mode. This set off a series of minor issues, including a software error that put it back into safe mode for a bit. A couple software patches were applied, and all is well, but the rover experienced further downtime after being put into safe mode again as a precaution against a solar flare.

[via Space]

Curiosity rover communication moratorium in effect until May 1 is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.