Interspace News

Cosmonauts Conduct ISS EVA

Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Mikhail Kornienko concluded a six-hour, 42-minute spacewalk Tuesday at 6:53 a.m. EDT. The cosmonauts began their spacewalk when they opened the hatches of the Pirs docking compartment at 12:11 a.m. This was the 147th spacewalk overall in support of International Space Station assembly and maintenance. The cosmonauts wore their Russian Orlan spacesuits to outfit the new Rassvet module for a Kurs automated rendezvous system capability for future dockings of Russian vehicles arriving at the station to link up to Rassvet. They also routed and mated Command and Data Handling cables on the Zvezda and Zarya modules. A video camera was removed and replaced on the aft end of Zvezda then successfully tested. The old camera was safely jettisoned away from the station More Photos Can Be Found In The ISS Slide Show. Click The Manned Spaceflight Button To The Left Of This Slide Show. Once Inside Select ISS Photo Credit: NASA

Fleeing the Scene

Saturn's moon Prometheus, having perturbed the planet's thin F ring, continues in its orbit. The gravity of potato-shaped Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across) periodically creates streamer-channels in the F ring, and the moon's handiwork can be seen in the dark channels here. To learn more and to watch a movie of this process, see Soft Collision. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from about 10 degrees above the ringplane. A star is visible through the rings near the center right of the image. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on June 1, 2010. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.3 million kilometers (808,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 7 kilometers (4 miles) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. Source NASA/JPL

Giant Snowballs In Saturn's Rings

Bright clumps of ring material and a fan-like structure appear near the core of Saturn's tenuous F ring in this mosaic of images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Such features suggest the existence of additional objects in the F ring. These discontinuous clumps near the core of the F ring may be created by the passage of the ring's shepherding moon Prometheus, and they can be seen casting narrow shadows that extend toward the bottom of the mosaic. The shadows are marked with arrows in the annotated version. On the right of the mosaic, a "fan" can be seen dissipating above the bright ring core. The fan (marked "F" in the annotated version) is a series of channels within the F ring's particles that appear to have a common origin but that spread outward radially in different directions. Gravitational perturbations on the ring material by a moonlet or clump of material can create these fans. The moonlet or clump orbits more or less elliptically compared to the rest of the F ring can create these fans. It is probably embedded in the ring and is causing the base of the fan channels to meet. See PIA12784 and PIA12786 for similar observations of such fans. The diagonal streamer-channels are periodically created by the gravity of the potato-shaped moon Prometheus which is 148 kilometers (92 miles) on its longest side but is on average 86 kilometers (53 miles) across. To learn more and to watch a movie of this streamer-channel phenomenon, see Soft Collision. The images have been re-projected in this mosaic so that the F ring appears straightened rather than curved and compressed azimuthally (along the ring). This change represents a scale compression in the horizontal direction of about 33 to one which is why Prometheus looks like a bright line. Prometheus is marked "Pr" in the annotated version. This sequence of 42 images was taken over a span of one hour, seven minutes. The earliest image is on the right, and time progresses moving left in the mosaic. Each image was cropped, re-projected and placed side by side in this montage. Scale in the original images was about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. The images were contrast enhanced and re-projected to a scale of 33 kilometers (21 miles) per pixel in the mosaic's horizontal direction and one kilometer (0.6 miles) per pixel in the mosaic's vertical direction. The single, cropped inset of the clumps included here was then magnified by a factor of two. The view in the original images looked toward the northern, unilluminated side of the rings from about 70 degrees above the ring plane. The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 8, 2008. The view was obtained at a range of distances from approximately 597,000 kilometers (371,000 miles) to 615,000 kilometers (382,000 miles) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 77 degrees. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Fractured

This observation from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the floor of a large impact crater in the southern highlands, north of the giant Hellas impact basin. Most of the crater floor is dark, with abundant small ripples of wind-blown material. However, a pit in the floor of the crater has exposed light-toned, fractured rock. The light-toned material appears fractured at several different scales. These fractures, called joints, result from stresses on the rock after its formation. Joints are similar to faults, but have undergone virtually no displacement. With careful analysis, joints can provide insight into the forces that have affected a rock, and thus yielding clues into its geologic history. The fractures appear dark, which may be due to dark, wind-blown sand, precipitation of different minerals along the fracture, or both. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Whiteknight Two (WK2) banks over the California desert as it carries Spaceship Two (SS2), the VSS Enterprise, on its third test flight last Thursday (July 15, 2010). With test pilots Peter Siebold and Michael Alsbury at the controls of Enterprise this was the first test flight with a crew aboard the spacecraft. Photo courtesy: Virgin Galactic

Lake Onerio Lacus

This image of Ontario Lacus, the largest lake on the southern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Titan, was obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 12, 2010. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Seven Sisters Get WISE

This image shows the famous Pleiades cluster of stars as seen through the eyes of WISE, or NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. The mosaic contains a few hundred image frames -- just a fraction of the more than one million WISE has captured so far as it completes its first survey of the entire sky in infrared light. The Pleiades are what astronomers call an open cluster of stars, meaning the stars are loosely bound to each other and will eventually, after a few hundred million years, go their separate ways. The cluster is prominent in the sky during winter months in the constellation Taurus, when viewed from the Northern Hemisphere. Often called the Seven Sisters from Greek tradition, this cluster of stars has been named by cultures the world over: Parveen in Persian; Tianquiztli in the Aztec tradition, and Subaru in Japan. The Pleiades is even the logo of the automotive company that bears its Japanese name. In this infrared view of the Pleiades from WISE, the cluster is seen surrounded by an immense cloud of dust. When this cloud was first observed, it was thought to be leftover material from the formation of the cluster. However, studies have found the cluster to be about 100 million years old -- any dust left over from its formation would have long dissipated by this time, from radiation and winds from the most massive stars. The cluster is therefore probably just passing through the cloud seen here, heating it up and making it glow. At a distance of about 436 light-years from Earth, the Pleiades is one of the closest star clusters and plays an important role in determining distances to astronomical bodies further away. This picture from WISE covers an area of 3.05 by 2.33 degrees, which is the roughly the same area on the sky that a grid of six full moons by 4.7 full moons would occupy. Most of the stars in the cluster fall within the 20-light-year-wide region shown here. All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this mosaic. Color is representational: blue and cyan represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is dominated by light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

America's Next Jupiter Probe

Workers place the special radiation vault for NASA's Juno spacecraft onto the propulsion module. Juno's radiation vault has titanium walls to protect the spacecraft's electronic brain and heart from Jupiter's harsh radiation environment. The whole vault, with more than 20 electronic assemblies inside, weighs about 200 kilograms (500 pounds). This image was taken on May 19, 2010, in the high-bay cleanroom at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, during Juno's assembly process. Once the radiation vault was installed on top of the propulsion module, NASA's Juno spacecraft was lifted onto a large rotation fixture to continue with its assembly process. The fixture allows the spacecraft to be turned for convenient access for integrating and testing instruments. Juno's specially designed radiation vault protects the spacecraft's electronic brain and heart from Jupiter's harsh radiation environment. The vault will dramatically slow down the aging effect radiation has on the electronics for the duration of the mission. The image was taken on June 14, 2010, as Juno was being assembled in a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is building the spacecraft. The Italian Space Agency, Rome, is contributing an infrared spectrometer instrument and a portion of the radio science experiment. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LMSS

Farewell Lutetia

On its way to a 2014 rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, with NASA instruments aboard, flew past asteroid Lutetia on Saturday, July 10. The instruments aboard Rosetta recorded the first close-up image of the biggest asteroid so far visited by a spacecraft. Rosetta made measurements to derive the mass of the object, understand the properties of the asteroid's surface crust, record the solar wind in the vicinity and look for evidence of an atmosphere. The spacecraft passed the asteroid at a minimum distance of 3,160 kilometers (1,950 miles) and at a velocity of 15 kilometers (9 miles) per second, completing the flyby in just a minute. But the cameras and other instruments had been working for hours and in some cases days beforehand, and will continue afterwards. Shortly after closest approach, Rosetta began transmitting data to Earth for processing. Lutetia has been a mystery for many years. Ground telescopes have shown that it presents confusing characteristics. In some respects it resembles a ‘C-type’ asteroid, a primitive body left over from the formation of the solar system. In others, it looks like an ‘M-type’. These have been associated with iron meteorites, are usually reddish and thought to be fragments of the cores of much larger objects. Image Credits: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

ISRO Tests New Sounding Rocket With Student Expariments

Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) witnessed another major event - the Technology Demonstrator Flight of the advanced sounding rocket RH 200 from its launch station at Thumba. The rocket was successfully launched at 1550 hrs on July 7, 2010 and achieved its intended altitude of 60 km in 2 minutes. ISRO has always encouraged students from universities to become partners for payload development. Towards this, students from Vellore Institute of Technology University (VITU), were being guided by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre to develop a part of the payload as a co-passenger in the RH200 technology demonstrator flight. The students payload comprised of tri-axial accelerometers, power switching module and safe arm relay unit matching the requirements of RH 200 rocket. The tri-axial accelerometer can monitor accelerations in all three directions. The power-switching module is for the power control of the payload. The faculty and students of VITU has taken keen interest during the development and test activities of these payloads at various work centres. Photo Credit: ISRO

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15) successfully launches CARTOSAT - 2B Satellite

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15), today (on July 12, 2010) successfully launched CARTOSAT - 2B from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. The launch of PSLV - C15 was the sixteenth consecutive successful flight of PSLV. GET THE FULL STORY IN THE COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT SECTION CLICK READ MORE BELOW Photo Credit: ISRO

Rosetta Visits Asteroid Lutetia

Asteroid Lutetia has been revealed as a battered world of many craters. ESA’s Rosetta mission has returned the first close-up images of the asteroid showing it is most probably a primitive survivor from the violent birth of the Solar System. The flyby has been a spectacular success with Rosetta performing faultlessly. Closest approach took place at 18:10 CEST, at a distance of 3162 km This photo shows the heavy mnetal space rock as Rosetta hurtles toward closest approach. GET THE WHOLE STORY AND MORE PHOTOS IN THE ROBOIC SPACEFLIGHT SECTION - CLICK READ MORE BELOW. ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

The Universe Then And Now

This image of the microwave sky was synthesized using data spanning the range of light frequencies detected by Planck. These low frequencies, which cannot be seen with the human eye, cover the range of 30 to 857 gigahertz. The grainy structure of the cosmic microwave background, with its tiny temperature fluctuations reflecting the density variations from which the cosmic web of our universe originated, is clearly visible in the high-latitude regions of the map. A vast portion of the sky, extending well above and below the galactic plane, is dominated by the diffuse emission from gas and dust in our Milky Way galaxy. While the galactic foreground hides the cosmic microwave background signal from our view, it also highlights the extent of our galaxy's large-scale structure. Although the two main components of the microwave sky appear to be separable only in certain areas, a foreground removal over the entire sky is possible thanks to sophisticated image analysis techniques, which have been developed by the Planck scientific teams. These techniques rely on the observatory's unique frequency coverage and the unprecedented accuracy of its measurements. This image is derived from data collected by Planck during its first all-sky survey, and covers about 12 months of observations. GET THE WHOLE STORY IN THE ROBOTIC SECTION OF THIS SITE Image credit: ESA, HFI & LFI consortia (2010)

Aurora Australis

Aurora Australis is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 23 crew member on the International Space Station. Among the views of Earth afforded crew members aboard the ISS, surely one of the most spectacular is of the aurora. These ever-shifting displays of colored ribbons, curtains, rays, and spots are most visible near the North (Aurora Borealis) and South (Aurora Australis) Poles as charged particles streaming from the sun (the solar wind) interact with Earth's magnetic field, resulting in collisions with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. The atoms are excited by these collisions, and typically emit photons as a means of returning to their original energy state. The photons form the aurora that we see. The most commonly observed color of aurora is green, caused by photons (light) emitted by excited oxygen atoms at wavelengths centered at 0.558 micrometers, or millionths of a meter. Visible light is reflected from healthy (green) plant leaves at approximately the same wavelength. Red auroras are generated by light emitted at a longer wavelength (0.630 micrometers), and other colors such as blue and purple are also sometimes observed. While auroras are generally only visible close to the poles, severe magnetic storms impacting Earth's magnetic field can shift them towards the equator. This striking aurora image was taken during a geomagnetic storm that was most likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the sun on May 24, 2010. The ISS was located over the Southern Indian Ocean at an altitude of 350 kilometers, with the observer most likely looking towards Antarctica (not visible) and the South Pole. The aurora has a sinuous ribbon shape that separates into discrete spots near the lower right corner of the image. While the dominant coloration of the aurora is green, there are faint suggestions of red photon emission as well (light fuscia tones at center left). Dense cloud cover is dimly visible below the aurora. The curvature of Earth's horizon, or limb, is clearly visible as is the faint blue line of the upper atmosphere directly above at top center. Several stars appear as bright pinpoints against the blackness of space at top right. Photo Credit: NASA