Testing Completed on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Backplane

Dear readers and followers,

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has reached another development milestone with the completion of static load testing of its primary mirror backplane support structure (PMBSS) moving the telescope one step closer to its 2018 launch.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's next-generation space observatory and successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Designed to be the most powerful space telescope ever built, Webb will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars. The Webb telescope is a joint project of +NASA , the +European Space Agency, ESA  and the +Canadian Space Agency . 

Credit image: NASA 

The PMBSS is the stable platform that holds the telescope's science instruments and the 18 beryllium mirror-segments that form the 21-foot-diameter primary mirror nearly motionless while the telescope peers into deep space. The primary mirror is the largest mirror in the telescope -- the one starlight will hit first.

Lee Feinberg, NASA’s Optical Telescope Element manager at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, announced "Static testing demonstrates the backplane has the structural integrity to withstand the forces and vibrations of launch and is the final test prior to starting the integration of the backplane with the rest of the telescope,"

The Northrop Grumman Corporation and ATK of Magna, Utah, completed the testing before delivering the structure to Northrop Grumman's facilities in Redondo Beach, California.

The next step for the space telescope is to integrate the composite structures with the deployment mechanisms to create the overall Optical Telescope Element (OTE) structure. The OTE structure will then be shipped to Goddard for integration with the mirrors. NASA and Northrop Grumman will perform cryogenic testing of the PMBSS structure after mirror integration is complete.

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Curiosity in the middle on the Martian sand

Dear followers,

fews day ago, we proposed you an impressive night picture of Curiosity, today a new 360° panorama has been built and published on our blog.

Curiosity Mars rover performed a successful proximity mode deployment of APXS in the wheel track on Sol 673. The images for panorama obtained by the rover's 34-millimeter Mast Camera. The mosaic, which stretches about 30,000 pixels width, includes 137 images taken on Sol 673.

Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 673 in The World

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Rise of the exoplanet discovery in 2014

Dear readers and followers,

2014 is an amazing year for the announcements of the discovery of expo-planets. The histogram shows the number of planet discoveries by year for roughly the past two decades of the exoplanet search. The blue bar shows previous planet discoveries, the red bar shows previous Kepler planet discoveries, the gold bar displays the 715 new planets verified by multiplicity.

Credit image: +NASA 

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X-Ray picture from NASA reveals a galactic Pyrotechnics called M106

Credit image: +NASA 

This galactic fireworks display is taking place in NGC 4258, also known as M106, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way. The picture has been taken using X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory

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NASA will build the most powerful rocket ever with Boeing

Dear readers and followers,

+NASA has reached a milestone in its development of the Space Launch System, or SLS, which is set to be the most powerful rocket ever and may one day take astronauts to Mars. After completing a critical design review, Boeing has finalized a huge  contract of 2.8 billion dollars with the US space agency. The deal allows full production on the rocket to begin. Virginia Barnes, Boeing's Space Launch System vice president and program manager announced “Our teams have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the SLS [...] the largest ever [...] will be built safely, affordably and on time.”

The last time NASA’s completed a critical design review of a deep-space human rocket was 1961, when the space agency assessed the mighty Saturn V, which ultimately took man to the moon.

Work on the 98 meters Space Launch System is spread throughout Southern California, including Boeing's avionics team in Huntington Beach. The rocket’s core stage will get its power from four RS-25 engines for former space shuttle main engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne of Canoga Park. The rocket, which is designed to carry crew and cargo, is scheduled for its initial test flight from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 2017.

The rocket will carry the Orion spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., which can carry up to four astronauts beyond low Earth orbit on long-duration, deep-space destinations including near-Earth asteroids, the moon, and ultimately Mars.

The first mission will launch an empty Orion spacecraft. The Orion spacecraft is still in development. Few days ago, the parachute system has been tested at very high altitude. The second mission is targeted for 2021 and will launch Orion and a crew of up to four NASA astronauts. The rocket's initial flight-test configuration will provide a 77-ton lift capacity. The final evolved two-stage configuration will be able to lift more than 143 tons.

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Amazing night selfie of Curiosity on Mars

Dear readers and followers,

The NASA rover, Curiosity is still exploring the land of the red planet, and it continue to take some pictures and panorama. 

Today we are pleased to propose you an amazing night panorama. The astronomy fans could observed the milky-way over the martian rover:


Mars Panorama - Curiosity rover selfie: Martian night in The World

The Digital Art Compilation has been done with:
Curiosity Rover's Self Portrait at "Windjana" Drilling Site (sol613) NASA's Mars Exploration Program (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
VISTA telescope: 9 billion pixel photo of a Milky Way European Southern Observatory (Image credit: ESO/VVV Consortium, Ignacio Toledo, Martin Kornmesser)

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Explore the night sky with Google Glass

Dear readers and followers,

If you are on of the lucky Google Glass explorer, you can explore the night sky thanks to the connected glasses developed and sold by the firm of Mountain View.

The app, called Star Chart has been specifically developed for Google Glass making many changes both big and small to the UI, interface and feature-set. With Star Chart for Google Glass you will get to explore the wonders of our universe by simply looking up at the sky to discover the stars, planets and constellations above you.
Features of Star Chart for Google Glass include:

• All the visible stars of the northern and southern hemispheres.

• All the planets of the solar system, the Moon, the Sun and Pluto.

• All 88 constellations, with imagery based on the beautiful artwork of 17th century astronomer Johannes Hevelius.

• Audio descriptions of all the planets and many of the brightest stars.

To launch Star Chart for Google Glass simply say: "OK Glass" followed by "Explore the stars".
Once Star Chart has launched simply look at the area of the night sky you are interested and Star Chart will show you what you are looking at.

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Follow in live video the Orion's test parachute on google+

Dear followers and readers,

today (Wednesday June 25th), NASA will perform tests of the parachute system of the new spacecraft called Orion. A test version of Orion is loaded onto a C-17 for a previous test of its parachute system. The test on Wednesday will be the most complex test the system will go through. Watch the test live in a Google+ hangout at 10:30 EDT. So join us there for the live and post your feedback about this impressive test !!!

 

Credit image: NASA 

Of the 17 parachute drops planned for the developmental test series for the system, this is the 14th and the most complex. A test version of Orion will be pushed out of a C-17 aircraft 11km above the desert of the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Only two previous tests have been conducted from such a high altitude, and this one will up the ante further by waiting through 10 seconds of free fall before Orion’s parachutes are deployed.

Those 10 seconds will let Orion build up more speed and aerodynamic pressure before the first of the parachutes is released, to put the maximum amount of stress on them. But even if the test version of the capsule doesn’t land softly on the desert floor, it will give engineers important data that will help them improve the design of the system that will help slow Orion when it bring crew back from destinations and reenters Earth’s atmosphere.



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NASA plans to explore Titan moon with drones

Dear readers and followers,

NASA has really great plans for space exploration. The US space agency wants to search Saturn's moon Titan for life but they're having trouble coming up with a good way to cover a large territory and obtain samples. For this, they think they may have a good solution: A 22-pound quadcopter that will work from a mothership.

Despite brisk temperatures of -290 degrees F, Saturn's giant Titan moon is of great interest to scientists, thanks to Earth-like geography, hydrocarbon "lakes" and even possible life. Though NASA's Cassini-Huygens probe visited Titan some time ago, the space agency would like to return at some point -- this time with a quadrotor. 

Using the latest drone and sensor tech, it would weigh less than 10kg, deploy from a recharging nuclear "mothership" balloon and acquire high-res images from close to the surface. With the benefit of that reconnaissance, it could land at promising spots, take microscopic photos and scoop up samples to be analyzed later by the mothership. NASA plans to develop the mission concepts further and design the drone in collaboration with AeroVironment.

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Google in talks with Virgin Galactic

Dear readers and followers,

The Montain View firm continue to develop its interest for space companies. After the purchase of Skybox Imaging few days ago, the search giant is in talks about a deal to take a stake in Sir Richard Branson's space tourism venture. Negotiations between the two companies have been taking place for months, and are said to be at an advanced stage.

The deal could be reputationally valuable for Virgin Galactic, which has had to defend itself against frequent suggestions that problems with its development will curb its viability.

The talks are likely to lead to a deal with two main elements, according to insiders:

The first will see Google inject hundreds of millions of dollars into a joint venture, with Virgin Galactic folding in the technology it has developed as part of its efforts to build the world’s first space tourism business. The second component will involve Google spending roughly 30 M$ in return for a small stake in the Virgin Galactic holding company.

The company has insisted that flights should begin this year, although there is no firm date, while rivals such as Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman, are developing competing projects. Celebrities including Ashton Kutcher, Katy Perry and Sir Richard himself are said to have paid $200,000 to secure seats on the venture’s inaugural flights.

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The NASA's lander Morpheus uses hazard detection system to land safely in dark

Credit image: +NASA / Mike Chambers

NASA demonstrated that it can land an unmanned spacecraft on a rugged planetary surface in the pitch dark in a May 28, 2014 free-flight test of the Morpheus prototype lander and Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology, or ALHAT

Web companies come in the space race

Dear readers and followers,

Web companies such as Google and Facebook from the Silicon Valley ramp up efforts to connect the world to their services, they are increasingly looking to the skies and higher.

At Google, several signs point to satellites. Actually, Previously Google bought drone-maker Titan Aerospace last month and now it's in talks to buy Skybox Imaging, a startup that creates high-resolution satellite images, for $1 billion. 

Moreover, last month, Google hired Brian Holz, who was chief technology officer at O3b Networks, which has launched special satellites to try to broadcast signals that would power new Internet service in developing countries around the world. Google had previously made a financial investment in O3b and one of its employees sits on O3b’s board. The startup’s recently-launched satellites faced technical setbacks this year.

Google also recently hired Dave Bettinger, who had spent 18 years at satellite firm VT iDirect, which supplies high speed broadband and other communications to military services and the oil and gas industry, according to people at Google. VT iDirect also suffered some product delays recently.

The two apparently go hand-in-hand for Google which uses high-resolution satellite images for Google Maps and its business-to-business branch, Earth Enterprise, which creates maps for companies, according to TechCrunch. Previously Google was also looking at other satellite imaging companies such as Planet Labs, but has now zeroed in on the Mountain View, Calif. company.

                                      

Skybox previously raised $70 million in 2012 and was valued around $600 million, but Google's reported $1 billion is making the deal happen, according to an unnamed TechCrunch source.

“A constellation of small imaging satellites, like what we already have in place today with RapidEye or what Skybox may have in the future, would give Google a very reliable, rich content source for imagery analytics and related applications,” Scott Soenen, CTO at another satellite company, BlackBridge, told TechCrunch.

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Student built rocket took off from the Bonneville salt flats, Utah

Credit image: NASA - Dusty hood 

A student-built rocket took off from the brilliant white hardpan of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Tooele County, Utah, May 17th 2014 during the Student Launch rocketry competition. 

Sixteen teams, comprised of some 250 student participants from 15 states, launched rockets of their own design, complete with three working science and engineering payloads apiece, cheered on by approximately 500 spectators.

NASA Student Launch is an annual education event, designed to inspire young people to pursue studies and careers in the science, technology, engineering or mathematics field. The event is organized by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and sponsored by ATK Aerospace Group of Magna, Utah. The grand-prize-winning school team will be named by NASA and ATK in late May. 

Successful space launch performed by the ESA rocket Vega

Dear readers and followers,

yesterday night, April 30th, the space launcher of the +European Space Agency, ESA called Vega, succeeded its Arianespace’s fourth mission so far in 2014, putting the company on track to perform a total of 12 launches from Europe’s Spaceport during the year. The lift-off occurred at the space center in Kourou, French Guiana, at 10:35 pm local time.

Credit: ArianeSpace

This launch leads to orbit an 800 kg Earth observation spacecraft, called KazEOSat-1 which will provide many images to the Republic of Kazakhstan with a complete range of civil applications; for instance, the monitoring of natural and agricultural resources, provision of mapping data, and support for rescue operations in the event of a natural disaster.

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Curiosity captured the first ever asteroids observed from the Martian planet

Dear readers and followers,

last week, on April 24th, the NASA's rover, Curiosity, switched its usual activity to observe the sky over the martian land. Using its camera, the rover captured the first ever picture of an asteroid observed from the martian planet.

Credit: NASA 

The both asteroid presented on the picture are the very small planet called Ceres ( 950 km of diameter) and Vesta (563 km of diameter). Ceres is the biggest asteroid of the asteroid belt.

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Space Selfie outside the International Space Station

Dear readers and followers,

Yesterday, during a spacewalk outside ISS, an astronaut snapped this Space Selfie! It's been said that it's difficult to get a good selfie while wearing a spacesuit. Astronauts Steve Swanson and Rick Mastracchio completed a short spacewalk to replace a failed Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (MDM) back up computer. The backup computer failed April 11th after a routine health check by the Mission Control team in Houston said NASA.  

Credit: +NASA 

Aurora & astro movie made in northern arctic Scandinavia

Credit: Silent Storms from Ole C. Salomonsen

The movie was filmed in Norway, Finland and Sweden, primarily around the Tromsø area, Norway by Ole C. Salomonsen.

Meteorite passed close to a skydriver during its jump

Dear readers and followers,

This is the first time in history that a meteorite has been filmed in the air after its light goes out.



Enjoy this great video of the jump and the story associated:


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A light has been observed on Mars by the rover Curiosity

Credit: +NASA 

A light has been observed on the red planet by the NASA's rover Curiosity .

What is your opinion about this ?

it seems that the light is induced by a cosmic ray hit said an engineer from +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory . Actually, the light it is not observed in the left-Navcam image taken at the exact same moment.

Doug Ellison, an imaging guru who happens to work at JPL, quickly told me in a Twitter update that the bright spot is due to a "cosmic ray hit" affecting the rover. (Later: The Surrey Space Center's Chris Bridges agrees.)

Update for 12:50 a.m. ET April 8: Here's a recap of the four pictures we're talking about:

April 3, right camera, with blip

April 3, left camera, without blip

April 2, right camera, with blip

April 2, left camera, without blip

NASA finds the largest know galaxy called El Gordo with the Hubble telescope

Credit: NASA / Hubble Space Telescope

The NASA team using data from Hubble Space Telescope has weighed the largest known galaxy cluster in the distant universe, catalogued as ACT-CL J0102-4915, but its nickname is El Gordo which means "the fat one" in Spanish.

Chris Hadfield back on the international Space Station to help the crew

Credits: Canadian Space Agency / Chris Hadfield 

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April fool

Successful docking of Soyuz TMA-12M with ISS after engine trouble delays arrival

Dear readers and followers,

Wednesday March 26th, we reported that the Soyuz spacecraft which liftoff from Baikonur had to change the docking procedure to the International Space Station (ISS) due to a engine failure during its space launch.

Today, the Russian spacecraft arrived and docked with ISS using the previous standard procedure which needed 2 additional days of flight (34 Earth orbit).

Credit: Euronews 

The new crew considering 3 astronauts, the Russian Cosmonauts Aleksandr Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and the NASA astronaut Steven R. Swanson will spend 6 months in the international Space Station.

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The SpaceX-3 resupply mission to ISS postponed again

Dear readers and followers,

today, NASA and SpaceX have been confirmed that Sunday's launch (March 30th) of its third contracted resupply mission to the International Station (ISS) has been postponed due to a range asset issue. 

Credit: SpaceX 

The spacecraft should resupply ISS but also deploy the next generation module for data communication using a laser, called OPALS for Optical Payload for Laser Science. More information including a new target launch date will be posted as it becomes available. 

Stay tuned.

Find the french version of the article there

Successful launch of the space mission Expedition 39 in Soyuz TMA-12M to ISS

Dear readers and followers,

yesterday night, three new crew members, the Russian Cosmonauts Aleksandr Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and the NASA astronaut Steven R. Swanson blasted off into Space tonight  at 21:17 UTC in the TMA-12M spacecraft onboard the space rocket Soyuz-FG from the Russian Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 

Credit: Parabolic Arc

Credit: Rt.com

The new crew, will dock to the International Space Station 6 hours after their launch and join the current crew members already onboard. Their mission on ISS will take around 6 months. Find below the video of the take-off.

 

Credit: NASA 

Update: Due to a failure, the spacecraft has to change the docking process to ISS. The spacecraft will use the previous standard process for the docking which needs to make 34 orbits of Earth. Stay tuned

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59th straight success for Ariane 5 from Kourou

Dear followers and readers,

last Saturday, March 22th 2014, the European space rocket, Ariane 5, performed with success a flawless launch from Europe’s spaceport at Kourou, French guiana. The space rocket orbited two telecommunications satellites, ASTRA 5B and Amazonas 4A. The flight was the European launcher’s 59th straight success since 2003. 

Credit image: CNES 

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Bring Astronomy on your wrist

Dear readers and followers,

If you are looking for a amazing gift or simply for yourself and that you want to bring some astronomy with you Jacob & Co. proposes THE WATCH you need! The creation called Astronomia Tourbillon includes a dial for the time (that remains upright in all positions as it moves around the main dial) a rotating representation of the earth, a spinning spherical crystal (perhaps a diamond), and lastly, an impressive looking bi-axial tourbillon. 

Credit: Jacob & Co

This is all based on a wonderful looking planetary gear arrangement that any engineering student (or watchmaker) would be proud to have as their term project. Enjoy this video:

Credit: Jacob & Co

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Dance of stars in the night sky over the Po delta

Credit: Dave sixtyfour 

This Startrail has been set in the "Sacca di Scardovari", a lagoon, where they are grown mussels and clams, of the Po River located in the northeast of Italy in the province of Rovigo. Over 200 shots has been combined with the software "startrails." and the exposure of each shot is about 25-30 seconds.

Extraordinary discovery of the gravitational waves: The Big Band Theory

Dear readers and followers,

yesterday US scientific community announced a huge event about the Big Bang theory: Astronomers have found the first direct evidence of cosmic inflation, that put the "bang" in the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. The team led by J. M. Kovac reported that they detected ripples in the fabric of space time, called gravitational waves. These waves has been identify to be the signature of a universe being wrenched violently apart when it was roughly a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old, so quite short time.

Credit: By Karl Tate

The data obtained with telescope at the South Pole obtained 3 years ago has been analysed many and many time with the aim to verify all the possible hypothesis. 

This discovery could be one of the most extraordinary discovery. the Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb compares this discovery to a 1998 observation that opened the window on mysterious dark energy which won the Nobel price in 2011.

Enjoy this video explaining the discovery of gravitational waves.

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Successful launch of Proton-M rocket with Russian AT1 and AT2 communication satellites

Dear readers and followers,

2 days ago, the space rocket, Proton-M was ready on its launch pad at Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The payload was two satellites of communication, built for the Russian Satellite Communications Company Express AT1 and Express AT2.

Credit: Russian Space Agency Roscosmos

If you missed the successfully, enjoy this video proposed from our Event: The rocket carried two communications satellites into orbit. 

AT1 satellite will be positioned at 56 degrees East with 32 Ku-Band transponders to cover Russia. In an other hand, the AT2 satellite will be positioned at 140 degrees.

Credit: SpaceVidNet

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ISS data communication boosted by the laser OPALS

Dear followers and readers,

The bandwidth speed of the communications between the International Space Station and Earth is a real bottleneck for the scientific experiments. But NASA decided to fix this problem. The slowness of capturing data from ISS is about to go into serious overdrive with a new laser communication experiment set which will be launch to ISS this weekend. The experiment gear is called OPALS for Optical Payload for Laser Science

Credit: OPALS - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

OPALS transfers the video data from ISS to the ground receiver at JPL's Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory (OCTL) in Wrightwood, California. As the ISS travels across the sky, a laser beacon is transmitted from the ground telescope to the payload on ISS and tracked. The main existing deep space missions send back 200k to 400k bits of information per second. OPALS will send information by laser beam rather than radio wave, demonstrating a speed of up to 50 megabits per second. Future deep space optical communication systems should reach up to one gigabit per second.

The OPALS module will be sent up to the space station aboard the cargo Dragon from the private company Space X. Its launch is planned next Sunday, March 16th.

Credit: NASA 

Stay tuned for the space launch of OPALS module

[Update] The Dragon launch was postponed to March 30. Stay tuned 

[Update] Chinese satellites may detected debris from the missing malaysia Airlines flight [nor not]

Dear readers and followers,

last week we knew about the dramatic missing of the Malaysia Airline flight. Today, Chinese satellites may have detected debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, as illustrated below. 

Credit: AFP

Chinese government satellites orbiting Earth may have detected floating, crash related debris from the missing Malaysian Airline flight MH-370. This discovery could be a key finding in spurring the ongoing and so far fruitless search efforts.

Stay tuned

[Update] Chinese admitted mistake in releasing images. They retracted that statement and said the picture was not supposed to be released.

Star trail and Aurora in Scotland captured by amateur photographer

Credit Chris Sinclair 

The picture has been taken in March 2nd in Scotland