May 20

Mars Probes Team Up to Un-Stick Stuck Rover

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

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The Spirit Mars rover has been stuck in the red planet’s soil for a couple of weeks, so NASA is trying out a bunch of procedures–some involving other Mars craft–in order to figure out how to best extract Spirit from its predicament.

The problem: one of Spirit’s wheels stalled out, and the other wheels dug themselves in part of the way. The trick is to avoid sinking the rover further to the point where the belly pan is touching the soil, according to Space.com.
The report said that initially the Mars project team was worried that the left-middle wheel had jammed, but a recent diagnostic test of the motor on May 16th proved that its electrical resistance was within normal operating range, indicating that the motor is probably fine.
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May 20

Video: Japanese astronaut surfs through space on ‘flying carpet’

Posted in: space, Today's Chili

The Japanese can turn pretty much anything into a variety show. So it’s no real surprise to hear that the Japanese public have issued a set of 16 zero-gravity challenges to be carried out by Jaxa astronaut, Koichi Wakata, during his time at the International Space Station. Tasks included folding laundry, applying eye-drops, and attempting to ride a “flying carpet;” the latter accomplished with some adhesive tape and a full-size bathroom mat. Seriously, shaka brah. Check the surf and full length videos after the break.

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May 19

Hubble is Released Into Orbit

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

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And that’s a wrap: Space shuttle Atlantis crew member Megan McArthur used the shuttle’s robotic arm to release the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit at 8:57 a.m. EST Tuesday, CNN reports. The mission marks the last time humans will touch the 19-year old telescope. Hubble has taken hundreds of thousands of high-resolution images–all free of the earth’s murky atmosphere.

“With soft separation burn, Atlantis now is slowly backing away from the telescope,” NASA said in a statement. “A jet firing will be performed in about a half-hour to increase Atlantis’ separation rate from the telescope, as the seven crew members bid farewell to Hubble for the final time.”
During the repair mission, NASA astronauts performed five spacewalks to install a new deep-space camera, a new spectrograph, new batteries, a guidance sensor, and insulation, and repaired the older main camera and an older spectrograph.
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May 18

Rivers May Have Recently Flowed On Mars: Report

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

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More space news, this time further out into the solar system: the two Mars rovers are still trucking along, but scientists here on Earth are working on a thorny problem related to the red planet.

New research suggests that water may have flowed over Mars’ surface in at least one place over the past billion years–relatively “recently,” since the planet has been around for about the same 4.5 billion years as our own–giving more credence to the idea that life may have once existed there, according to ScienceNOW.

A while back, the rovers confirmed that water covered the surface of Mars about four billion years ago, when it was much warmer. But now that the planet is cooler and drier, we’ve only found small bits of evidence here and there. That’s beginning to change, though.
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May 18

Astronauts On Final Hubble Spacewalk

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

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Two NASA astronauts are on a spacewalk performing the last repairs to the Hubble, and will be the last two humans ever to touch the aging space telescope, according to Space.com.

Atlantis astronauts John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel are working in the shuttle cargo bay to add new batteries, insulation and a guidance sensor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Over the weekend, the crew ran into some minor trouble with a stuck bolt and a dead battery in one of the tools, so the repairs are slightly behind schedule.
Nonetheless, the new guidance sensor will help the telescope keep its camera steady and aid in tracking star positions and motions, according to the article. So far, the astronauts have installed a new deep-space camera and a new spectrograph, and have refurbished Hubble’s advanced camera and older spectrograph.
Finally, they’re also adding a special docking ring so a robotic spacecraft can help guide the Hubble many years from now into the Pacific Ocean when it is decommissioned. (Image credit: NASA)
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May 15

Europeans Launch Two Space Telescopes

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

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Two European space telescopes have lifted off atop an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency’s launch center in French Guiana on Thursday, according to MSNBC. The two telescopes will help astronomers learn more about the origins of the universe.

Herschel, an infared telescope, will study the earliest stages of star and galaxy development and search for the presence of water in outer space. Planck, meanwhile, is a microwave telescope that will study the radiation left behind by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, the report said, in an attempt to learn more about dark matter and dark energy–both of which constitute over 90 percent of the material in space.
“Our previous images of the baby universe were like fuzzy snapshots–now we’ll have the cleanest, deepest and sharpest images ever made of the early universe,” Charles Lawrence, a NASA Planck project scientist, said in a Jet Propulsion Laboratory statement.
On both telescopes, liquid helium will cool the instruments to 459 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, or 0.3 Kelvin (for Herschel) and 0.1 Kelvin (for Planck), in order for both of them to work properly, the report said. Herschel will arrive in orbit in two months, and then four months later will begin its 3.5-year mission. Planck will also reach orbit in two months and start its 15-month mission one month later. The two missions together cost about $2.5 billion. (Image credit: ESA)
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May 13

Space Shuttle Catches Hubble

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

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The space shuttle Atlantis has caught up with the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope 350 miles above Earth, and is now preparing for its robot arm to grab hold of the telescope at 3:54 PM EST, according to CNN. In order to do so, the astronauts must periodically fire the shuttle’s thrusters to line it up with the scope. Meanwhile, the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is ordering Hubble to stow its two high-gain antennas and close a door to shield the sensitive mirror and other gear, according to the report.


By the end of the procedure, the shuttle will come within 35 feet of the scope, grab hold onto it, and bring it into the shuttle’s cargo bay for repairs. This will be the fifth and final repair mission for the Hubble, which last saw service seven years ago–four years beyond the usual maintenance interval. Originally NASA had decided to EOL Hubble in 2004 after the Columbia disaster the year before, but public pressure and a comprehensive boost in shuttle safety procedures (like the one we saw yesterday) caused the agency to reconsider. (Image credit: NASA)
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May 12

Space Week Roundup: The Right Stuff

Posted in: NASA, roundup, space, Today's Chili, top

Well, last week’s space theme was exciting for readers and staff alike, not least of all because we had a real actual NASA astronaut baring his soul daily. Here are the highlights:

• 15-year veteran NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao’s column about flying in the Space Shuttle and Soyuz, and living on the International Space Station for six months. The little things matter most, and Leroy described the minutiae of zero-g daily life in a way that was both charming and shocking at once. Here are all of his Astroblogger entries.

• In Carmel Hagen’s thrilling heist story about a guy and a girl and a locked-up pile of moon rocks, we learned how an intern stole NASA’s most treasured possession.

• We had a teaser and then a real honest-to-God taste of spaceman food (without the benefit of floating forks and knives).

• We looked back, on heroes like Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard, mistakes like the horrifying Nedelin disaster, and all kinds of memorable phenomena ranging from space chimps to space Lego to Space Camp.

• More importantly, we looked ahead to the next space shuttles, the development of space tourism, the next moon mission and our ultimate destiny as interstellar pioneers.

Where didn’t we go? Maybe where no man has gone before—we left that to JJ Abrams and the ghost of Gene Roddenberry. God speed, Giz readers. And stay tuned for the next thrilling theme week. Any guesses? [Get Me Off This Rock]

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May 11

Explore the Space Station and Mars Rover on Your PC

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

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Want a first-hand, three-dimensional look at NASA’s International Space Station? NASA has unveiled an interactive, 3-D photographic collection of internal and external views of the ISS, plus a model of the next Mars rover, according to PhysOrg.com. NASA developed the interactive tours in tandem with the Microsoft Virtual Earth team, using hundreds of photographs along with Microsoft’s Photosynth photo imaging technology.

“The space station pictures are not simulations or graphic representations but actual images taken recently by astronauts while in orbit,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington, in the article. “Although you’re not flying 220 miles above the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, it allows you to navigate and view amazing details of the real station as though you were there.”

Meanwhile, the Mars rover imagery offers a preview of
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, which is scheduled to launch in 2011. View NASA’s Photosynth collection at http://www.nasa.gov/photosynth or on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Web site at: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth. (Unfortunately, it requires a Microsoft Silverlight install, but it’s well worth it.) NASA also created a scavenger hunt to go with the imagery, including objects like a space suit and a station crew patch; the agency will be posting clues on Facebook and Twitter. More info on the scavenger hunt can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/collaborate.

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May 11

NASA Running Out of Nuclear Fuel

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

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In an interesting twist on the politics of nuclear weapons proliferation, NASA is running out of the fuel necessary to power its deep-space missions, according to the Associated Press. “The end of the Cold War’s nuclear weapons buildup means that the U.S. space agency does not have enough plutonium for future faraway space probes–except for a few missions already scheduled,” the report said, citing a new study released Thursday by the National Academy of Sciences.

The problem affects any space mission that extends further than Jupiter. Why Jupiter? Anything beyond that can’t use solar power because of the distance. So instead, NASA has been using Plutonium 238. That’s a substance that isn’t found in nature and has only been produced as part of nuclear weapons programs. The U.S. stopped producing it about 20 years ago, ran out, and has been sourcing it from Russia, which is also about to run out.

As a result, the Department of Energy–by law, the only U.S. agency that can make plutonium–has announced that it will restart its program, and requested $30 million in next year’s budget for preliminary design and engineering, according to the report. (Image credit: NASA/Cassini Mission)

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