Space Shuttles Discovery, Endeavour and Enterprise have all left Kennedy Space Center for new homes, but Atlantis? She’s staying. Come November 2nd, the orbiter will be wheeled out to a 65,000-square-foot exhibit, which is still being constructed at KSC’s visitor complex. Though the craft’s cargo bay doors will be open and its remote manipulator arm extended when its displayed, visitors won’t be able to climb aboard it — or any of the other shuttles, for that matter. However, we got the chance to visit Bay 2 of the Orbiter Processing Facility, step inside Atlantis and give it the hands-on treatment. Look out below for the gallery or hit the jump for the full video tour.
In an update that here on Earth would be beyond mundane, an especially exciting approach towards a ripple of sand has been made by the Mars Curiosity rover and announced today by NASA. This update includes plans for the rover to do a several day analyzation of the sand so that they might make the rover’s first use of its scoop a reality. This is just the latest in a long line of updates being shared with the world as the mission moves forward – this is, of course, the most interactive a NASA mission has been allowed to be in its history.
The dust and sand you’ll be seeing above and below exists in what’s called “Rocknest” – a soil patch on Mars. This location exists right in near the area Mars Curiosity rover landed – and is now right on top of. The next item on the mission’s list is the rover doing a bit of drilling and some sieving – they’ll be making sure that the sand they’re picking up is OK to store inside the rover for an amount of time that’s long enough for them to analyze it on a greater level.
Above you’ll see the dune in the distance that the first image in this post has a skid mark on – below you’ll see a video showing scoop testing with soil sample (on Earth, pre-mission):
This sieving will take place over the course of several hours and will be the “Sample Preparation” portion of this test – perhaps the most important part of the entire process. This mission report – mind you – took place thus far on Sol 56, that being the 56th martian day on Mars after the craft landed on the planet.
Curiosity’s arm delivering sample for analysis:
This mission also included monitoring the environment around the rover with several detectors and instruments. These included the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument, and the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS). The final testing will occur on the sand material after several days of testing, only done once its confirmed that the sand wont ruin the tools the team is using to test it.
One example of something that might go wrong is that the sand would be composed of materials that took in moisture – if they did this to a dangerous degree, you’d have sludge-like junk that’d mess things up royally. Check the timeline below for additional updates from the brief past of the Curiosity mission and stay tuned as NASA samples soil!
Yes, seriously. NASA announced on Wednesday that its Curiosity rover had “checked in” on Mars via Foursquare. Marking the first check in from another world, the robotic rover will utilize the location-minded social network to share updates and pictures while visiting the Red Planet. While Curiosity will continue to explore the possibilities of Mars being able to sustain life, it would appear that the fourth planet from the sun just got a brand new mayor. Something tells us the universe’s rarest badge is about to be bestowed.
SpaceX just put a date on when private space travel becomes a seemingly everyday affair: October 7th. That’s when the company and NASA expect to launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station delivering the first of a dozen cargo loads to the International Space Station through the unmanned Dragon spacecraft. While we’re not expecting any trouble — SpaceX has done this before — there’s a chance for a rescheduled launch on October 8th if there are any minor setbacks. The flights won’t achieve the cachet of government-funded runs with human beings onboard, but we’re sure the company doesn’t mind when it’s taking steps towards democratizing spaceflight… and pocketing $1.6 billion in the process.
NASA currently controls its deep space missions through a network of huge satellite dishes in California, Spain and Australia known as the Deep Space Network (DSN). Even the Voyager 1 probe relies on these channels to beam data back to Earth as it careers away into space. More »
As NASA promised, Curiosity has stopped at the quarter pole toward its first scientific destination to test its robotic arm and attached scientific instruments. After 100 yards of driving, the rover extended its 7-foot limb, and will now spend six to ten days checking its predetermined positions and range of motion. That will ensure the appendage is ready after surviving the chilly vaccuum of space and subsequent setdown, and will let its minders see how it functions in the unfamiliar Martian gravity and temperatures. The JPL scientists in charge of the six-wheeler will also peep the Mars Hand Lens Imager and made-in-Canada Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer to warrant that they’re up for all the geology to come. If all goes well, the rover will start scooping, drilling and analyzing in earnest when it hits Glenelg, then Mount Sharp — so, we’d limber up first before tackling all that, too.
Now that Curiosity has survived its thrill-a-minute landing and passed an upgrade and physical with (nearly) flying colors, the rover is off to earn its $2 billion keep. The buggy got off to a good start, driving 52 feet towards its first science site “beautifully, just as our rover planners designed it,” according to NASA. The destination, Glenelg, is 1,500 feet away from the now-familiar Bradbury Landing where it first set down, which is pretty far for a rover that treks along at about a tenth of a mile per hour. On top of that, its minders have some stops in mind to test instruments — meaning it’ll arrive there in about two weeks. Once at Glenelg, Curiousity will scope the unusual geology of the region, though its principal destination for science is Mount Sharp, a relatively vast six miles away. Don’t worry about it running out of gas, though — it’s nuclear power supply will last a full Martian year, or 687 earth days.
Space elevators are slowly making the transition from science fiction to science fact… but we’re not quite there yet. LiftPort, a group that already holds the record for tallest elevator, is taking a second stab at the technology after going into “hibernation” in 2007. Founder Michael Laine has resurrected the company and taken to Kickstarter to drum up interest (as well as a little cash) in his latest project — a lunar elevator. As Laine explains in the video, an elevator from the surface of the Moon to a rendezvous point between the Earth and its satellite is actually possible using current technology. And, thanks to its low gravity and lack of atmosphere, a much simpler construction site. The first step is a $1 million feasibility study that will involve a two kilometer tall elevator here on Earth. LiftPort has already far exceeded its Kickstarter goal of $8,000, but the point was never to fund the entire project. The hope was to garner some media attention and get people involved and invested (both financially and emotionally) by offering rewards. You could even pledge enough money to base jump from the top of the tethered research tower, which will be held aloft by helium balloons. For more info check out the video after the break and hit up the source link to pledge your hard earned cash.
The Martian hills are alive with the sound of music. Well, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s voice at least, as the agency reveals that the first recorded human voice has traveled from Earth, to another planet, and back. The words might not have literally echoed in the surrounding hills, but by having been beamed to Curiosity and back again, have made a small step towards interplanetary communication. Along with the motivational words of Bolden, the rover returned some telephoto images from the onboard 100mm and 34mm lenses. The pictures show the hills toward which Curiosity is bound, and tease the scientists with their rich-looking — and hopefully revealing — layers of geology. Want to know what interplanetary voicemail sounds like? No need to go to Mars and back, just click on the more coverage link below.
It’s a story that we hoped we’d never have to report. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on Earth’s Moon, has died at the age of 82 after complications from heart surgery three weeks earlier. His greatest accomplishment very nearly speaks for itself — along with help from fellow NASA astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, he changed the landscape of space exploration through a set of footprints. It’s still important to stress his accomplishments both before and after the historic Apollo 11 flight, though. He was instrumental to the Gemini and X-series test programs in the years before Apollo, and followed his moonshot with roles in teaching aerospace engineering as well as investigating the Apollo 13 and Space Shuttle Challenger incidents. What more can we say? Although he only spent a very small portion of his life beyond Earth’s atmosphere, he’s still widely considered the greatest space hero in the US, if not the world, and inspired a whole generation of astronauts. We’ll miss him.
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