Apr 14

NASA Mulls Extra Spacewalk to Fix ISS Valve

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili

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NASA may extend space shuttle Discovery’s current mission by one extra day and one spacewalk, so that astronauts can work on a stuck valve that could impact half of the International Space Station’s on-board systems, Space.com reports.
The valve is one part of the ISS’s ammonia coolant tank; it regulates flow of coolant through half of the space station, the report said. It has been stuck since April 8th; so far, there have been no ill effects, but the ISS will soon need the extra coolant to combat heating from switching positions later this week.
Thankfully, the ISS has two full spare ammonia tanks on board, so if need be, the astronauts will swap the bad one out in case mission control can’t fix the problem remotely, the report said. (Image credit: NASA)
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Apr 14

NASA, GM to Launch Robot into Space

Posted in: NASA, robot, Robots Robotics, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili

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Remember Robonaut 2, the GM and NASA-developed humanoid robot?

It’s going for a little ride.

NASA has announced it plans to launch the first human-like robot to space later this year, where it will live permanently on the International Space Station.
GM’s 300-pound Robonaut 2, or R2, is capable of working alongside humans at GM manufacturing plants, and was also engineered to work alongside astronauts in space.
R2 will launch on space shuttle Discovery mission STS-133, which is currently scheduled for December. GM said in a statement that it plans to monitor how the robot operates in weightlessness.
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Apr 12

Next Mars Rover Gets Super-Powered Camera

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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NASA engineers has finished developing new camera eyes to the agency’s new Curiosity Mars rover, scheduled to launch in 2011.
The Fixed Focal Length Mastcam, developed by Malin Space Science Systems, contains a telephoto lens, and will pan and tilt to provide image coverage around the rover, as well as nearby and further out to the horizon, Space.com reports.
The new eyes will soon be mounted to the rover. NASA originally scrapped a plan back in 2007 to add a 3D-capable zoom lens thanks to cost pressures, the report said. But the agency has since funded the project anyway, and there’s still time for MSSS to develop 3D-capable zoom versions.
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Apr 09

NASA Unveils Way Forward for Space Program

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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NASA has finally revealed its plans for the coming years Thursday, announcing a lineup of new programs that fulfill President Obama’s plan for space exploration.
In lieu of the Constellation program, which has now been terminated, NASA plans to develop commercial flights of crew and cargo to the International Space Station, along with long-range technology to allow sustained exploration beyond Earth’s orbit, including by humans, according to the New York Times.
One example is $6 billion (over five years) for Flagship Technology Demonstrations, which will develop orbital fuel depots and test the idea of using planetary atmospheres to slow spacecraft instead of braking rockets, the report said.
The Kennedy Space center, meanwhile, will get $5.8 billion over five years to develop commercial cargo and astronaut passenger programs for the space station.
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Apr 08

Space Station Gets Hoarders Treatment

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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Astronauts aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-131 moved a cargo module from Discovery’s payload bay to the International Space Station Thursday morning, Space.com reports.
The new module, dubbed Leonardo, measures 21 feet long and 15 feet wide, and weighs a svelte 27,274 pounds when full of cargo. It lets astronauts begin transferring tons of supplies and other equipment–17,000 pounds of it–to and from the station over a planned nine-day mission.
Among the critical supplies to be transferred are new science equipment, extra supplies and spare parts. In turn, the ISS will offload broken equipment, trash, and other unnecessary crap to go back to Earth via the space shuttle.
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Apr 05

Mars Lander Gets Last Chance to Send Signal

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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NASA announced that its frozen Phoenix Mars Lander has “one last chance” to send a signal–any signal–indicating that it survived the Martian winter.
The Mars Odyssey orbiter will listen in for the third time in four months, Space.com reports, to see if the Phoenix Mars Lander sprang to life once again.
The lander wasn’t designed to survive such a harsh arctic winter, the report said. Phoenix landed on Mars in May 2008, and lasted about two months longer than it was originally designed for. That raised hopes the lander would somehow survive the winter. But it has been a year and a half since we last heard from it.
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Apr 01

NASA Investigating Nuclear Power Glitch on Next Mars Rover

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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NASA is attempting to fix a power glitch it discovered in the nuclear power plant of the $2.3 billion Mars Science Laboratory, the next rover scheduled to explore Mars, Space.com reports.
NASA plans to launch Curiosity in 2011; the rover received a new name after the agency held a nationwide student contest last year. But just recently, the agency found a “slightly faster than expected degradation rate” in the rover’s radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which will boost the craft’s range and overall lifetime on the red planet.
The generator uses 10 pounds of plutonium dioxide, mostly plutonium-238, as a heat source, the report said. A NASA engineer said that the agency is currently working with the Department of Energy to understand the problem. So far, the only expected impact (if left unfixed) is that the rover will need a few extra operational workarounds during the Martian winter.
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Mar 30

Lord British: I Own the Moon

Posted in: gaming, NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili, video games

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Richard Garriott, the developer of the Ultima RPG series and also known as Lord British, seems to think he owns a piece of the moon.
This stems from last week’s announcement that NASA scientists finally located the Lunokhod 2 (pictured), a moon rover that the agency lost track of 37 years ago. Garriott had purchased it an auction along with the Soviet Union’s Luna 21 lander back in 1993 for $68,000.
That’s fine–although weird, in a way. But now Garriott is claiming that owning these devices on the moon may entitle him to ownership of the property they rest on, as TechEYE.net reports.
“I think I can truly make the only private, legitimate claim to territory – at the very least around my rover and, potentially, along its point of travel…to give me some actual property rights on the moon,” Garriott said in the report.
Hey Richard, any chance you can go back and deliver us a proper Ultima X, and stop wasting time fantasizing about how to improve the plot of Ultima II?
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Mar 29

iPhone App Controls NASA Mars Robotic Rover

Posted in: iPhone, NASA, robot, Robots Robotics, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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We’ve seen examples before of the iPhone acting as a remote control for something–but EclipseCon 2010 attendees have gone a step further.
Conference attendees were challenged to create a robotic control system to drive a NASA-built robot across a prototype Mars landscape. As Slashdot reports, developers had to either prove their e4 programming skills by creating an e4-Rover client, or use an existing e4 client to operate the rover through a series of tasks to collect points.
The winning entry was designed by Peter Friese and Heiko Behrens, who together coded up an iPhone client that controls the robot using the iPhone’s accelerometer. Watch the video after the break for a short demonstration.
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Mar 29

CubeSail parachute to drag old satellites from orbit, keep atmospheric roads clear

Posted in: galaxy, nanotechnology, research, satellite, science, space, Today's Chili, uk, university, video

It’s not something laypeople think about very often (space debris, for those wondering), but it’s clearly on the minds of boffins at the University of Surrey. Over the years, the amount of defunct equipment hovering around beyond our view has increased significantly, with some reports suggesting that over 5,500 tonnes of exhausted kit is currently hanging around somewhere up there as a result of “abandoning spacecraft.” In order to prevent the problem from growing (and to possibly reverse some of the damage), the CubeSail has been created. Put simply (or as simply as possible), this here parachute could be remotely deployed once a satellite had accomplished what it set out to do, essentially dragging it back through a fiery re-entry that it would never survive and clearing out the orbital pathway that it was using. We’re told that it’ll be ready for deployment in late 2011, but for now you can check out an all-too-brief demonstration vid just beyond the break.

Continue reading CubeSail parachute to drag old satellites from orbit, keep atmospheric roads clear

CubeSail parachute to drag old satellites from orbit, keep atmospheric roads clear originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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