Space Flight

United States & Russia Joint Mission To Mars Possible

May 15, 2012

Russia would be willing to be a partner with the United States on a manned mission to Mars, a Russian space official said at the United Nations. At U.N. headquarters to mark the International Day of Human Space Flight, Sergey Saveliev, deputy head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, said only international cooperation could make such a mission possible. “I have to say that currently there is no country that could organize a manned spaceflight to Mars and a safe return,” Saveliev said. “We strongly believe that this project can be accomplished only through international cooperation,” he said. “In this...

SpaceX And Bigelow Aerospace To Offer Missions To Private Space Station

May 14, 2012

By Michael Muracco

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Bigelow Aerospace (BA) have agreed to conduct a joint marketing effort focused on international customers. The two companies will offer rides on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, using the Falcon launch vehicle to carry passengers to Bigelow habitats orbiting the Earth. According to Bigelow Aerospace’s President and Founder, Robert T. Bigelow, “We’re very excited to be working with our colleagues at SpaceX to present the unique services that our two companies can offer to international clientele. “We’re eager to join them overseas to discuss the substantial benefits that BA 330 leasing can offer in combination with...

President Obama Threatens To Veto Cuts To NASA Budget

May 8, 2012

By Michael Muracco

A 2013 spending bill that would fund NASA’s commercial crew program below the level the president requested drew a veto threat May 7 as the U.S. House of Representatives was preparing to begin debate on the proposal. The $51 billion Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Act for 2013 (H.R. 5326) that the Republican-led House began debating May 8 would fund NASA at $17.56 billion next year — the lowest level since 2008 and some $150 million less than President Barack Obama requested for the agency. NASA’s commercial crew program — a two-year-old effort that aims to foster development by 2017...

12 Mile High Martian Dust Devil Spotted By NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

April 5, 2012

By Michael Muracco

A Martian dust devil roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) high was captured winding its way along the Amazonis Planitia region of Northern Mars on March 14, 2012 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Despite its height, the plume is little more than three-quarters of a football field wide (70 yards, or 70 meters). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has now spotted a gigantic Martian dust devil roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) high, churning through the Amazonis Planitia region of northern Mars. The HiRISE camera (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) captured the event on March 14, 2012. Scientists say that despite its height, the plume is just 70 meters (70 yards) wide. The image was taken during late northern spring, two weeks short of the northern summer solstice, a time when the ground in the northern mid-latitudes is being heated most strongly by the sun. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured imagery of a Red...

Is There Microbial Life On Saturns Moon Enceladus?

March 28, 2012

By Michael Muracco

Do underground oceans vent through the tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole and creating Saturn's mysterious E-ring.

In a series of tantalizingly close flybys to the moon, named “Enceladus,” NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed watery jets erupting from what may be a vast underground sea. These jets, which spew through cracks in the moon’s icy shell, could lead back to a habitable zone that is uniquely accessible in all the solar system. “More than 90 jets of all sizes near Enceladus’s south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds all over the place,” says Carolyn Porco, an award-winning planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. “Cassini has...

NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft Captures Aurora’s On Saturn

March 28, 2012

By Michael Muracco

Since the NASA / ESA Cassini-Huygens spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, astronomers and space scientists have been able to study the ringed planet and its moons in great detail. Now, for the first time, a team of planetary scientists have made simultaneous measurements of Saturn’s night side aurora, magnetic field, and associated charged particles. Together the fields and particle data provide information on the electric currents flowing that produce the emissions. Team leader Dr Emma Bunce of the University of Leicester will present the new work at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester on 27 March 2012. Generally,...

NASA’s Mars Rover ‘Opportunity’ Continues Science Experiments As Martian Winter Approaches

February 1, 2012

By Michael Muracco

NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity is positioned on the north end of Cape York on the rim of Endeavour Crater with an approximate 15-degree northerly tilt for favorable solar energy production during the winter. Opportunity is conducting regular radio Doppler tracking measurements to support geo-dynamic investigations of the planet, in-situ (contact) science investigations of the target, “Amboy” including an extended Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic, and continued collection of the 13-filter, 360-degree “Greeley” panorama. Decreasing energy levels with the approach to the winter solstice has constrained Opportunity for conducting both a radio Doppler tracking pass and an afternoon Ultra High Frequency...

Our Future In Space

January 31, 2012

By Michael Muracco

This video, originally shot back in July at TAM 2011 Las Vegas, is of a panel featuring Bill Nye, astronomers Neil DeGrasse Tyson & Pamela Gay, and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss—and the entire discussion is moderated by Bad Astronomy‘s Phil Plait. The subjects raised are consequential, the discussions thought provoking, and the opinions of the panelists refreshingly diverse. Related posts:NASA's Orion Spacecraft Readied For Manned Mission To AsteriodNASA's Dawn Spacecraft Approaches Asteroid VestaNew NASA Update On Asteroid 2005 YU55NASA's Galileo Spacecraft Finds Water On Jupiter's Moon EuropaSETI Search Of Kepler Planets Receives First Candidate SignalsCause Of Russia's Phobos-Grunt...

Cause Of Russia’s Phobos-Grunt Failure Emerges

January 31, 2012

By Michael Muracco

An official map of the Phobos-Grunt reentry released by Roskosmos by 20:00 Moscow Time on Jan. 15, 2012.

A plausible scenario for quick demise of Phobos-Grunt leaked from industry sources to the online forum of the Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine on January 17. The most likely culprit in the failure of the probe’s propulsion unit to ignite soon after it had entered orbit on November 9 was a programming error in the flight control system. Post-failure tests (apparently simulating in-flight conditions) revealed that the processor usage level in the main flight control computer onboard the spacecraft exceeded 90 percent of its capacity. It could easily lead to crashes and rebooting as more systems were being activated after the...

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity Begins Ninth Year On Mars

January 24, 2012

By Michael Muracco

This mosaic of images taken in mid-January 2012 shows the windswept vista northward (left) to northeastward (right) from the location where NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is spending its fifth Martian winter, an outcrop informally named "Greeley Haven." Opportunity's Panoramic Camera (Pancam) took the component images as part of full-circle view being assembled from Greeley Haven. The view includes sand ripples and other wind-sculpted features in the foreground and mid-field. The northern edge of the the "Cape York" segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater forms an arc across the upper half of the scene. Opportunity landed on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time and EST (Jan. 24, PST). It has driven 21.4 miles (34.4 kilometers) as of its eighth anniversary on the planet. In late 2011, the rover team drove Opportunity up onto Greeley Haven to take advantage of the outcrop's sun-facing slope to boost output from the rover's dusty solar panels during the Martian winter. Research activities while at Greeley Haven include a radio-science investigation of the interior of Mars, inspections of mineral compositions and textures on the outcrop, and monitoring of wind-caused changes on scales from dunes to individual soil particles. The image combines exposures taken through Pancam filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet). The view is presented in approximate true color. This "natural color" is the rover team's best estimate of what the scene would look like if humans were there and able to see it with their own eyes. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

Eight years after landing on Mars for what was planned as a three-month mission, NASA’s enduring Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is working on what essentially became a new mission five months ago. Opportunity reached a multi-year driving destination, Endeavour Crater, in August 2011. At Endeavour’s rim, it has gained access to geological deposits from an earlier period of Martian history than anything it examined during its first seven years. It also has begun an investigation of the planet’s deep interior that takes advantage of staying in one place for the Martian winter. Opportunity landed in Eagle Crater on Mars...