Water on the moon came from the sun

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on Monday october 6th, scientifs published really interesting work about the origin of water on Moon. Water trapped in rocks on the moon's surface probably originated mostly from streams of energetic particles blasted from the sun and not from cosmic impacts from comets, researchers say.

For years, scientists argued over whether the moon harbored water or not. Recent findings confirmed that water does exist on the moon, although its surface remains drier than any desert on Earth. +NASA officials have suggested this water could one day help support colonies on the moon and missions to Mars and beyond.

It remained uncertain where all of this water came from. One possibility is that it was delivered by impacts from carbonaceous chondrites, meteorites that can be rich in water, and from comets. Another is that water formed on the moon after exposure to the solar wind, streams of high-energy particles from the sun. Atoms of hydrogen in the solar wind can react with oxygen trapped in moon rocks to form water.

To help find out where lunar water came from, scientists analyzed 45 microscopic grains of dust that astronauts on NASA's Apollo 16 and 17 missions brought from the moon. They focused on levels of different isotopes of elements within these dust grains. Isotopes differ from each other in how many neutrons there are in their atoms — for instance, normal hydrogen atoms do not have any neutrons, while atoms of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, each possess one neutron. Water can be made with deuterium as well as with normal hydrogen.

The sun is naturally low in deuterium because its nuclear reactions quickly consume the isotope. All other bodies in the solar system possess relatively high levels of deuterium, remnants that existed in the nebula of gas and dust that gave birth to the solar system. By analyzing the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the water in moon dust, the researchers could deduce whether the water originated from the sun or elsewhere, such as chondrites.

One complicating factor in this analysis is that cosmic rays — high-energy particles from deep space — can generate deuterium when they slam into the moon. To account for how cosmic rays can influence deuterium levels on the moon, the scientists also looked at levels of lithium-6, an isotope of lithium that cosmic rays would also generate when they hit the moon. By examining the ratio of lithium-6 to normal lithium, the researchers deduced how often cosmic rays struck the moon and generated deuterium as well as lithium-6.

The researchers expected to find water from chondrites in the interiors of the lunar dust grains and water from both chondrites and the solar wind in the exteriors or rims of these grains. Surprisingly, the water in both the interiors and exteriors of these dust grains apparently originated mainly from the solar wind.

These findings suggest that any water that cosmic impacts bring to the moon is not retained much. At most, an average of 15 percent of the hydrogen in lunar soil may come from chondritic water, the researchers said.

Source: journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Orion spacecraft flight testing

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NASA’s newest spacecraft, Orion, will be launching into space for the first time in December 2014, on a flight that will take it farther than any spacecraft built to carry humans has gone in more than 40 years and through temperatures twice as hot as molten lava to put its critical systems to the test.

Testing of Orion system and capsule continue. Actually, in June 2014, NASA performed 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.

As the flight test of NASA’s Orion spacecraft nears, a new video -- called "Trial By Fire" -- details the spacecraft’s test and the critical systems engineers will evaluate during the Dec. 4 flight. Orion is in the final stages of preparation for the uncrewed flight test that will take it 5800 km above Earth on a 4.5 hours mission to test many of the systems necessary for future human missions into deep space.

Few weeks ago, +NASA has officially announced they have completed a rigorous review of the Space Launch System (SLS). SLS is a heavy-lift, exploration class rocket which is still under development to take humans beyond Earth orbit and to Mars. Finally, after many months of budget difficulty, NASA has approved the program's progression from formulation to development. 

SLS will be the world's most capable rocket. In addition to opening new frontiers for explorers traveling aboard the Orion capsule, the SLS may also offer benefits for science missions that require its use and can’t be flown on commercial rockets.

Source

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Is Pluto a planet? The votes are IN !!

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What is a planet? For generations of kids the answer was easy. A big ball of rock or gas that orbited our Sun, and there were nine of them in our solar system. But then astronomers started finding more Pluto-sized objects orbiting beyond Neptune. Then they found Jupiter-sized objects circling distant stars, first by the handful and then by the hundreds. Suddenly the answer wasn’t so easy. Were all these newfound things planets?

Since the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is in charge of naming these newly discovered worlds, they tackled the question at their 2006 meeting. They tried to come up with a definition of a planet that everyone could agree on. But the astronomers couldn’t agree. In the end, they voted and picked a definition that they thought would work.

The current, official definition says that a planet is a celestial body that: "is in orbit around the Sun, is round or nearly round, and has “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit."

But this definition baffled the public and classrooms around the country. For one thing, it only applied to planets in our solar system. What about all those exoplanets orbiting other stars? Are they planets? And Pluto was booted from the planet club and called a dwarf planet. Is a dwarf planet a small planet? Not according to the IAU. Even though a dwarf fruit tree is still a small fruit tree, and a dwarf hamster is still a small hamster.

Eight years later, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics decided to revisit the question of “what is a planet?” On September 18th, a debate has been organized and its goal: to find a definition that the eager public audience could agree on!

Science historian Dr. Owen Gingerich, who chaired the IAU planet definition committee, presented the historical viewpoint. Dr. Gareth Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center, presented the IAU’s viewpoint. And Dr. Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, presented the exoplanet scientist’s viewpoint.

Zingerich argued that “a planet is a culturally defined word that changes over time,” and that Pluto is a planet. Williams defended the IAU definition, which declares that Pluto is not a planet. And Sasselov defined a planet as “the smallest spherical lump of matter that formed around stars or stellar remnants,” which means Pluto is a planet.

After these experts made their best case, the audience got to vote on what a planet is or isn’t and whether Pluto is in or out. The results are in, with no hanging chads in sight.

According to the audience, Sasselov’s definition won the day, and Pluto IS a planet.

Source


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Soyuz TMA-14M arrives safely at ISS despite solar array issue

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Expedition 41, the current human increment aboard ISS, has expanded from three to six members, with last night’s safe arrival of Soyuz TMA-14M and its crew of Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Samokutyayev and Yelena Serova, together with U.S. astronaut Barry Wilmore. 

“That little red streak, hidden behind the Dragon solar array is the Soyuz launching.” A remarkable image of the Soyuz TMA-14M ascent, captured by the astronaut Reid Wiseman.

Credit image: NASA

The trio launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Friday, September 26th (local time) (4:25 p.m. EDT Thursday, September 25th), embarking on a six-hour, four-orbit “fast rendezvous” profile to dock with the ISS at 8:11 a.m. Baikonur time Friday (10:11 p.m. EDT Thursday). However, all did not go entirely to plan, following the failure of one of Soyuz TMA-14M’s electricity-generating solar arrays to deploy properly.

The Soyuz TMA-14M crew Barry Wilmore, Aleksandr Samokutyayev and Yelena Serova will spend 168 days in space, forming the second half of Expedition 41 and the core of Expedition 42. 

Credit image: NASA

Source: NASA


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MAVEN delivered the first observations of Mars atmosphere

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the NASA’s spacecraft called MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) has obtained its first observations of the extended upper atmosphere surrounding Mars. Piling on to the good news from Mars this week, the US spacecraft Maven sent home its first ultraviolet images from Mars. While they may not be flashy, these images will help determine the composition and variability of the upper atmosphere, and investigate the mystery when the water escaped.

The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these false-color images eight hours after the successful completion of Mars orbit insertion by the spacecraft at 10:24 p.m. (EDT) on Sunday, September 21th. 

Credit image: NASA

The MAVEN spacecraft has been sent with success by the space rocket Atlas 5 last November 2013. Its travel to Mars took 10 months.

The image shows the planet from an altitude of 36500 km in three ultraviolet wavelength bands:

• Blue shows the ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface.
• Green shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud. 
• Red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface; the bright spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds.

The oxygen gas is held close to the planet by Mars’ gravity, while lighter hydrogen gas is present to higher altitudes and extends past the edges of the image. These gases derive from the breakdown of water and carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere. Over the course of its one-Earth-year primary science mission, MAVEN observations like these will be used to determine the loss rate of hydrogen and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. 

Tracking the spacial and temporal variation of these gases, along with carbon, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and ionized carbon dioxide, will help scientists better understand what processes are driving the atmosphere's composition. The particularly interesting part for the water history of the planet involves measuring the ratio between light water and heavy water: hydrogen (121.567 nm) and deuterium (121.533 nm). 

That's a task that requires a high level of precision, and has been successfully accomplished for the lower atmosphere on Mars before, but never for the upper atmosphere where gas loss is actually taking place. These observations will allow us to determine the amount of water that has escaped from the planet over time.

Source: NASA

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First picture of the Indian Mars orbiter

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yesterday, India announced the successful of its first mission to mars. Today the ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission captures its first image of the red planet. The picture has been taken from a height of 7300 km of altitude with a 376 m spatial resolution by the Mangalyaan probe.

Credit image: ISRO

India's 1,350 kg orbiter will now circle the planet for at least six months, with five solar-powered instruments gathering scientific data that may shed light on Martian weather systems as well as what happened to the water that is believed to have existed once on Mars in large quantities.

Source: Indian Space and Research Organization

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India successfully puts spacecraft in Mars' orbit

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after the mission sent by +European Space Agency, ESA, Mars Express, and after the mission sent by +NASA, curiosity, and the missions Mars2 and Mars3 sent by Russia, India is the fourth country to send a mission to the red planet. This was in November 2013 !

Today, India triumphed in its first interplanetary mission, placing a satellite into orbit around Mars on Wednesday morning and catapulting the country into an elite club of deep-space explorers. The Mangalyaan probe is a spacecraft powered by solar arrays and packed with five instruments to study the surface and atmosphere of Mars. 

Credit image: Indian Space and Research Organization

Scientists broke into wild cheers as the orbiter's engines completed 24 minutes of burn time to maneuver the spacecraft into its designated place around the red planet. "We have gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and innovation," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, standing alongside scientists with the Indian Space and Research Organisation at the command center in the southern tech hub of Bangalore. "We have navigated our craft through a route known to very few," Modi said, congratulating the scientists and "all my fellow Indians on this historic occasion." Scientists described the final stages of the Mars Orbiter Mission, affectionately nicknamed MOM, as flawless. The success marks a milestone for the space program in demonstrating that it can conduct complex missions and act as a global launch pad for commercial, navigational and research satellites.

It's also a major feat for the developing country of 1.2 billion people, most of whom are poor. At the same time, India has a robust scientific and technical educational system that has produced millions of software programmers, engineers and doctors, propelling many into the middle class. 

Getting a spaceship successfully into orbit around Mars is no easy task. More than half the world's previous attempts, 23 out of 41 missions, have failed, including one by Japan in 1999.

USA had its first success with a 1964 flyby by a spacecraft called Mariner 4, returning 21 images of the surface of the planet. The former Soviet Union reached the planet in 1971, and the European Space Agency in 2003. NASA congratulated India in a Twitter message welcoming MOM to studying the red planet. On Sunday, NASA achieved its own success in placing its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or Maven, in position. The U.S. has two more satellites circling the planet at the moment, as well as two rovers rolling across the rocky Martian surface. The European Space Agency's Mars Express, launched over a decade ago, is still operating as well.

India was particularly proud that MOM was developed with homegrown technology and for a bargain price of about $75 million, a cost that Modi quipped was lower than many Hollywood film budgets. By comparison, NASA's much larger Maven mission cost nearly 10 times as much at $671 million.

India's 1,350 kg orbiter will now circle the planet for at least six months, with five solar-powered instruments gathering scientific data that may shed light on Martian weather systems as well as what happened to the water that is believed to have existed once on Mars in large quantities.

It also will search Mars for methane, a key chemical in life processes on Earth that could also come from geological processes. None of the instruments will send back enough data to answer these questions definitively, but experts say the data will help them better understand how planets form, what conditions might make life possible and where else in the universe it might exist India wanted the spacecraft - also called Mangalyaan, meaning "Mars craft" in Hindi -to show the world its ability to design, plan, manage and operate a difficult, deep-space mission. India has already conducted dozens of successful satellite launches, including sending up the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, which discovered key evidence of water on the Moon in 2008.

The country's space scientists are already planning new missions, including putting a rover on the Moon. But space agency chief K. Radhakrishnan said their main focus would be to continue developing technologies for commercial and navigational satellite applications.

Source: Indian Space and Research Organization

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SpaceX will get its own space launch site

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Monday morning, the September 22th, SpaceX broke ground at the site near Boca Chica beach in Cameron County, Texas, where it plans to build a commercial rocket launch pad. As SpaceX founder Elon Musk lifted a shovel of dirt, his ultimate goal of developing technology to enable trips to Mars took a step forward. “This feels great. It feels like the future,” Musk said. Governor Rick Perry and other dignitaries were also at this event. "This announcement represents a huge step forward for our state and continues our nation's proud legacy of scientific advancement," Perry said. "It builds upon our pioneer heritage, our tradition of thinking bigger, dreaming bolder, and daring to do the impossible. SpaceX is the latest in a long line of forward-thinking companies that have made Texas home, and I couldn't be prouder to help break ground on this revolutionary new facility." The Boca Chica site will be the world’s first commercial orbital space port.

Musk said he wants the company’s new commercial orbital rocket launch site to be operational as soon as possible. That means the paved launch site near the end of U.S. Highway 4 at Boca Chica should be complete in about nine months, with the first rocket launch taking place as early as late 2016. The rocket launch site will be located about three miles north of the Mexican border and about five miles south of Port Isabel and South Padre Island.

SpaceX intends to build a vertical launch area and control center to support 12 commercial launches per year. The vehicles launched include the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and smaller reusable, suborbital launch vehicles. Musk revealed that he expects “thousands of launches.” Furthermore, “when we start doing commercial crew activities, I would expect us to launch a crew from here,” he said. Moreover, he added "What’s important is to have a truly commercial launch site, just like we have commercial airports. Every sort of structure has its primary focus and I think it’s important that the world have a truly commercial orbital spaceport,”.

Rep. Filemon Vela, who introduced Musk and Perry, predicted that the “benefit from an educational and economic standpoint that SpaceX will bring to this region is something that many of us never dreamed of.” In addition, Perry said that “Over the course of the last 13, almost 14 years, we have looked for major projects of which we can make a really big impact on South Texas,” “I noticed the sign behind me that says ‘pavement ends in 1,000 feet.’ But the future of South Texas takes off right behind me. And that’s what today’s really all about.”

Perry also announced an investment of $9 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund and The University of Texas System to establish STARGATE to develop and support commercial phased-array technology for satellite and space vehicle communication. The city of Brownsville, through the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation will contribute $500,000 to the project.

Monday's groundbreaking is the result of years of cooperation between Texas and SpaceX. The idea for a commercial spaceport in Texas was first discussed on a TexasOne trip to California in 2011. Since then, Gov. Perry has met with Elon Musk and written letters to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to help secure clearance for the facility. Also, several members of the Governor's staff have appeared in front of the FAA to help bring the facility to Texas.

Source: Space X


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Boeing and SpaceX share $6.8 billion in NASA space taxi program

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NASA has awarded Boeing Co. a contract worth as much as $4.2 billion and rival Space Exploration Technologies Corp. a separate pact valued at up to $2.6 billion to develop, test and fly space taxis to carry U.S. astronauts into orbit. Reflecting NASA and White House policy goals, NASA opted for two contractors to spur competition, cut overall technical risk and hopefully keep a lid on prices.

The American built rockets and spacecraft would replace the Russian systems that currently provide the only access to the international space station. The space taxi is slated to transport its first astronaut to the orbiting laboratory by 2017.

Credit image: NASA

Last Tuesday, the NASA's long-awaited announcement marks a milestone for commercial space ventures, partly because both companies will own and operate the equipment while experiencing significantly less day-to-day federal oversight than previous manned space programs. The final value of the contracts, which likely will run past the end of the decade, depends on each of the contractors meeting specified timetables and obtaining NASA certification of their rockets and capsules for safety and reliability. Assuming the companies win those approvals, the contracts will cover as many as a dozen missions overall to shuttle astronauts and limited amounts of cargo to and from the space station.

NASA chief Charles Bolden said the awards set the stage for "the most ambitious and exciting chapter in the history of NASA and human space flight."

If the programs are successful, NASA officials believe some of the hardware eventually could be used to offer rides to space tourists. Other technology could be adapted in separate NASA efforts to develop a deep-space rocket and more-capable capsules intended to take astronauts to Mars in coming decades.

Even if NASA's plans work out, lack of international support may end up creating a new problem: the space station, or at least parts of it, could be closed as early as the middle of the next decade if various countries cut off financial support. That would leave the nascent space-taxi program looking for new destinations. For now, though, Mr. Bolden told reporters the contracts fulfill President Barack Obama's pledge to end NASA's dependence on Russia and return to using U.S.-built boosters and spacecraft to achieve orbit. The last U.S. space shuttle, which fulfilled that role, was mothballed three years ago.

Boeing's larger share of the project, which had been expected, stems partly from the higher operating costs and larger overhead it has built up over decades as a NASA contractor, government and independent space experts said. But, according to these experts, Boeing's award also reflects the higher score it garnered in some of NASA's technical rankings. Boeing's proposed technology met all of the agency's design review requirements, the experts said, while the system proposed by SpaceX, as the Southern California company is known, fell short in some areas.

NASA officials emphasized that the size of the awards underscores SpaceX's reputation as a nimble, low-cost supplier. Founded by former Web entrepreneur Elon Musk, SpaceX has grown rapidly and proven itself as a reliable shipper of cargo to the space station. The manned capsule it plans to use to carry astronauts is an upgraded version of its Dragon cargo capsule, already in use.

In previous commercial development efforts, NASA ended up awarding SpaceX basically the same amount as it did the company's chief rivals. In those instances, the gap amounted to between 3% and 10% less for SpaceX. This time, the difference was close to 25% of the total.

In a statement, Boeing stressed its work for NASA stretching back to the dawn of the space age. "Boeing has been part of every American human-space-flight program, and we're honored that NASA has chosen us to continue that legacy," said John Elbon, general manager of the Chicago-based company's space exploration unit.

Prior to the announcement at the Kennedy Space Center, NASA faced conflicting pressures from the White House and senior House Republicans. From the time the Obama administration shook up NASA's bureaucracy by proposing commercial space taxis, the agency has been keen to maintain competition. But over the years, congressional leaders have crafted legislative language and otherwise urged Mr. Bolden and his top managers to pick just one contractor for this phase of the effort, to avoid redundant spending.

In the end, NASA opted for competition but devised a series of reviews and procedures enabling it to withhold funds from either contractor if agency officials determined progress was flagging.

Sierra Nevada Corp., the third company vying for an award, didn't get a contract despite some initial support inside and outside NASA for its design. The company proposed a winged vehicle, resembling a conventional aircraft, that would launch vertically atop an Atlas V rocket but return by landing on a runway. Such a spacecraft would have "long-term reusability" to significantly reduce operating costs, according to George Torres, a former industry official and author of books on space. "That's why the arguments were so vociferous."

Once NASA decided to award Boeing the bulk of the funds, according to Mr. Torres, support for Sierra Nevada dropped dramatically because both companies envisioned using the Atlas V rocket. Under all circumstances, according to Mr. Torres and others, NASA wanted two different rockets in the mix.

But throughout the news conference, and in the comments of some lawmakers reacting to the awards, much of the emphasis was on NASA's plans to go beyond low-Earth orbit and ultimately to other planets. Robert Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center, described the new industry-government partnerships being forged as the "first step from planet earth to going on to Mars someday."

In the same vein, Mr. Bolden devoted a large portion of his remarks to discussing future launches and tests of NASA's Orion capsule, designed to explore the solar system beyond the space station. But unlike the commercially driven contracts for space taxis, Orion and the boosters that are intended to blast it into space are being developed by NASA under more-traditional contracts mandating closer agency oversight. Boeing has a major role in that effort.NASA has awarded Boeing Co. a contract worth as much as $4.2 billion and rival Space Exploration Technologies Corp. a separate pact valued at up to $2.6 billion to develop, test and fly space taxis to carry U.S. astronauts into orbit.

Source: NASA


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Blasting report for the NASA's asteroid protection program

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NASA's effort to identify potentially dangerous space rocks has taken a hit. On Monday, the space agency's inspector general released a report blasting NASA's Near Earth Objects program, which is meant to hunt and catalog comets, asteroids and relatively large fragments of these objects that pass within 17.5 million kilometers of Earth. The purpose is to protect the planet against their potential dangers. 

Most near-Earth objects harmlessly disintegrate before reaching Earth's surface. But there are exceptions, like the nearly 20 meters meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013, causing considerable damage. For this reason +NASA decided to propose a reward of 35 k€ for an asteroid hunter software.

Credit image: NASA

In a 44 pages report, Inspector General Paul Martin said the Near Earth Objects program needs to be better organized and managed, with a bigger staff. NASA's science mission chief, former astronaut John Grunsfeld, agreed and promised the problems will be fixed. "NASA places a high priority on finding and characterizing hazardous asteroids to protect our home planet from them" he said in a statement. According to the report, the program has an executive at NASA headquarters and two offices in Massachusetts and California, each with six employees. For nearly a decade, the report noted, NASA has been tracking near-Earth objects bigger than 150 meters across. The goal was to catalog 90 percent by 2020.

The space agency has discovered and plotted the orbits of more than 11,000 near-Earth objects since 1998, an estimated 10 percent. It does not expect to meet the 2020 deadline. The program has insufficient oversight, Martin's office concluded, and no established milestones to track progress. In addition, NASA needs to do a better job of overseeing the various observatories searching for near-Earth objects, and teaming up with other U.S. and international agencies, the report said.

Source: NASA

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Cubsats inadvertently released from ISS

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few days ago, September 4th, two more of Planet Lab’s shoebox-sized Earth imaging satellites launched them selves from aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the latest in a series of technical mysteries involving a commercially owned CubeSat deployer located outside Japan’s Kibo laboratory module.

Credit image: NASA

Station commander Steve Swanson was storing some blood samples in one of the station’s freezers Friday morning when he noticed that the doors on NanoRack’s cubesat deployer were open, announced +NASA . Flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston determined that two CubeSats had been inadvertently released. “No crew members or ground controllers saw the deployment. They reviewed all the camera footage and there was no views of it there either,” said NASA mission commentator Pat Ryan..

The satellites, owned by San Francisco-based Planet Labs, are part of a planned 100-member network designed to collect images of the entire Earth every 24 hours. So far, 12 of 32 CubeSats delivered to the space station aboard a Cygnus cargo ship in July have been deployed, including four launched inadvertently, said NanoRacks spokeswoman Abby Dickes. In addition to the two Planet Labs satellites launched Thursday night, two more of the company’s satellites were released accidentally August 23th, a NASA status report shows.

Credit image: NASA

The latest inadvertent deployment followed unsuccessful attempts Wednesday night to return NanoRack’s CubeSat dispenser to service. Troubleshooting efforts included Jiggling, the small robotic arm holding the dispense in an attempt to get its doors to open, Ryan added.

Flight control teams are assessing whether to bring the deployer back inside the station or to try to release the remaining CubeSats still awaiting launch.

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ISS's astronaut point of view

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This week, the +NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman from the Expedition 40 tweeted this photo from the International Space Station: "My favorite views from #space – just past #sunrise over the ocean,".

Credit image: NASA/ +Gregory Reid Wiseman

The Expedition 40 crew has been busy aboard the Space Station, recently performing health checks and humanoid robot upgrades. In the same time, a trio of orbital residents is packing up gear as they prepare to come back to home in less than two weeks. 

Commander Steve Swanson powered down and stowed Robonaut 2 after wrapping up its mobility upgrades this week. He installed new legs on the humanoid robot including external and internal gear as well as cables. This sets the stage for more upgrades in the fall before Robonaut takes its first steps as an assistant crew member. 

Robonaut was designed to enhance crew productivity and safety while also aiding people on Earth with physical disabilities.

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Satellite executive suddenly out at Google and move to SpaceX

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Google's efforts to build a network of satellites to provide Internet service to the billions of people around the world took a hit on Wednesday after reports that one of the program leads had abruptly left the company.

Credit image: AFP

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. Few months ago, 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. Moreover, 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.

Reports emerged in early June that Google had partnered with O3b Networks as a part of Project Loon, a project to launch low-orbit, Internet-enabled satellites. Wyler joined Google to help with the project and reported directly to chief executive Larry Page.

Google Satellite executive Greg Wyler has left Google and has reportedly been seen frequenting the SpaceX office, according to The Wall Street Journal. Neither Wyler nor the two companies have commented on his abrupt departure, which comes just months after he was hired to assist in Google's attempt at creating a global internet service. 

Although he is reportedly working in close proximity with billionaire Elon Musk, The Wall Street Journal cites sources as stating that the satellite communications expert is not a SpaceX employee. His departure also coincides with Google's loss of rights to a certain radio spectrum, which is controlled by Wyler's company WorldVu Satellites Ltd. "This could hurt Google's aspirations in this area in the short term," Mile Marker 101 CEO Neil Mackey tells The Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Wyler would be helming a Google project that would put 180 satellites in orbit as part of its bid to provide worldwide internet access.

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Russian spacecraft Foton-M4 lands successfully but all geckos lost

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Yesterday, September 1st the, troubled satellite with live geckos and other scientific experiments onboard landed in Southern Russia, according to the Russian space agency, Roskosmos. 

However all geckos were found dead after the capsule had been opened. They must be bead because of cold, annonced the Russian space agency. The touchdown of the Foton-M4 spacecraft occurred at 13:18 Moscow Summer Time. The mission of Foton-M4 thus lasted 44 days instead of 60 days, which it was expected to fly at the time of the launch.

Credit images: Russian Space Agency

The agency's press-release also claimed that an average altitude of the satellite's orbit had been 575 kilometers, exceeding that of the International Space Station, ISS. This "piece of information" was likely copied from a pre-launch announcement, because, in reality, the orbit-correction engine onboard Foton-M4 had failed to deliver the spacecraft to its planned orbit shortly after its liftoff on July 19.

However, July 24th, Russia’s space agency has re-established communication with its Foton-M4 satellite in Earth’s low orbit, three days after losing contact.

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NASA defines and presents Mars 2020 project

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Now in the planning stages of +NASA for its Martian mission, the yet-to-be-named rover vehicle will be launched to Mars in 2020 with the aim to collect martian samples. The design of the rover is similar to that of NASA's rover, Curiosity which landed in 2012.

Like NASA's Curiosity rover, Mars 2020 will land using a heat shield, parachute and "sky crane" lander that hovers using rockets while lowering the rover to the surface on cables.

Although the new rover’s science payload is less massive than Curiosity’s, scientists expect the new instruments to be more capable:

• The rover can drill up to 31 small, cylindrical core samples from rocks and store them for possible retrieval by a future mission.

• The Mars Oxygen In-situ resource utilization Experiment (MOXIE) will ingest the toxic Martian air and produce breathable oxygen from the carbon dioxide it contains. This is a proof-of-concept device, pointing the way for future astronauts’ life-support systems on Mars.

• The mast-mounted Supercam images the surface and analyzes the chemical composition and mineralogy of the rocks. Supercam also detects the presence of organic compounds from a distance. Mastcam-Z is a color stereo camera system. It has a zoom capability that we have never had on a Mars rover. It will produce stunning images from the surface of Mars, including in 3-D. It also includes a range of filters carefully selected for geologic studies. And, the zoom capability will help in the planning of drives for the rover. This instrument will be developed by French laboratories.

• The Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) is an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer for examining the fine-scale elemental composition of the Martian surface.

• The Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Exploration (RIMFAX) is a ground-penetrating radar providing centimeter-scale resolution of the geologic structure beneath Mars’ surface. This instrucment will be developed by Norvegian laboratories.

• The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence of Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) spectroscope scans the ground with a laser to detect organic chemicals.

• A small mast atop the rover contains a set of sensors called the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA), measuring temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity, and the size and shape of wind-blown dust particles.

Source: NASA

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Hubble looks at light and dark nebula in Perseus constellation

Dear readers and followers,

This new +NASA / +European Space Agency, ESA  image from Hubble Space Telescope image shows a variety of intriguing cosmic phenomena.

Surrounded by bright stars, towards the upper middle of the frame we see a small young stellar object (YSO) called SSTC2D. Located in the constellation of Perseus, this star is in the early stages of its life and is still forming into a fully grown star. In this view from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys(ACS) it appears to have a murky chimney of material emanating outwards and downwards, framed by bright bursts of gas flowing from the star itself. This fledgling star is actually surrounded by a bright disk of material swirling around it as it forms: a disc that we see edge-on from our perspective.

Credit image: +NASA / +Hubble Space Telescope 

These stars are lighting up the surrounding gas and sculpting it into the wispy shape seen in this image. However, the most dramatic part of the image seems to be a dark stream of smoke piling outwards from [B77] 63 and its stars: a dark nebula called Dobashi 4173. Dark nebulae are incredibly dense clouds of pitch-dark material that obscure the patches of sky behind them, seemingly creating great rips and eerily empty chunks of sky. The stars speckled on top of this extreme blackness actually lie between us and Dobashi 4173.

Source: NASA


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NASA observed an asteroid collision creating a huge cloud: rocky planet creation ?

Dear readers and followers,

The NASA's telescope, called Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) has spotted an eruption of dust around a young star, possibly the result of a smashup between large asteroids. This type of collision can eventually lead to the formation of planets.

Credit image: +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

Scientists had been regularly tracking the star, called NGC 2547-ID8, when it surged with a huge amount of fresh dust between August 2012 and January 2013. While dusty aftermaths of suspected asteroid collisions have been observed by Spitzer before, this is the first time scientists have collected data before and after a planetary system smashup. The viewing offers a glimpse into the violent process of making rocky planets like ours.

Credit image: +NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory / +The University of Arizona 

Rocky planets begin life as dusty material circling around young stars. The material clumps together to form asteroids that ram into each other. Although the asteroids often are destroyed, some grow over time and transform into proto-planets. After about 100 million years, the objects mature into full-grown, terrestrial planets. Our moon is thought to have formed from a giant impact between proto-Earth and a Mars-size object.

In the new study, Spitzer set its heat-seeking infrared eyes on the dusty star NGC 2547-ID8, which is about 35 million years old and lies 1,200 light-years away in the Vela constellation. Previous observations had already recorded variations in the amount of dust around the star, hinting at possible ongoing asteroid collisions. In hope of witnessing an even larger impact, which is a key step in the birth of a terrestrial planet, the astronomers turned to Spitzer to observe the star regularly. Beginning in May 2012, the telescope began watching the star, sometimes daily. A dramatic change in the star came during a time when Spitzer had to point away from NGC 2547-ID8 because our sun was in the way. When Spitzer started observing the star again five months later, the team was shocked by the data they received: a very thick cloud of dusty debris now orbits the star in the zone where rocky planets form. As the scientists observe the star system, the infrared signal from this cloud varies based on what is visible from Earth. For example, when the elongated cloud is facing us, more of its surface area is exposed and the signal is greater. When the head or the tail of the cloud is in view, less infrared light is observed. By studying the infrared oscillations, the team is gathering first-of-its-kind data on the detailed process and outcome of collisions that create rocky planets like Earth.

The team is continuing to keep an eye on the star with Spitzer. They will see how long the elevated dust levels persist, which will help them calculate how often such events happen around this and other stars, and they might see another smashup while Spitzer looks on.

Source: NASA

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