Dragon takes flight tomorrow! 05.18.12

SpaceX, a commercial spacecraft company, will make history tomorrow if all goes as planned. It will become the first private company to launch a commercially designed and built spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Dragon (a wonderful name with an even better logo, we think), should launch tomorrow, May 19, at 4:55 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission is primarily a safety test. NASA and SpaceX will both offer live coverage of the launch. http://www.spacex.com/downloads/COTS-2-Press-Kit-5-14-12.pdf
Read more from SpaceX. Read the official Dragon press kit. Read the original story from SPACE.com. Read the Wetherbee Sky Watcher.

Discovery headed to the Smithsonian, 04.20.12

Space Shuttle Discovery is on its way to the public eye at the Smithsonian. Earlier this week, the space shuttle was spotted hitching a ride to its new home on the back of a specialized 747 aircraft (pictured below).

Image Credit: NASA/Smithsonian Institution/Harold Dorwin

Yesterday, April 19th, the Discovery "attended" a ceremony (pictured below) where it traded places with space shuttle Endeavour at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. According to NASA, Discovery will soon be on display at the Smithsonian Institution's Air & Space Museum.

Image Credit: NASA/Smithsonian Institution/Carolyn Russo

Packing power, 09.07.11

NASA is working on a power source that could revolutionize space exploration. A nuclear reactor the size of a regular suitcase, it is strong enough to power eight average US homes, yet portable enough to travel in small, compact space craft. Designed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, the generator is not actually in production yet, but given that its true value is proven, it could be venturing outside Earth’s atmosphere in a few decades or less.

A concept lunar space station. Image credit: SPACE.com.

So, what could such a generator be used for? More dependable that solar power panels, the generators would be smaller, more durable, much easier to repair, and portable. They could be used on the “dark side” of whatever planet they happened to be stationed on (yes, we are dreaming about space stations on the Moon or Mars). They would also generate far more power than a solar cell of comparable size.

Wait a minute, what about nuclear meltdown? In light of disasters light Chernobyl and the recent leaks in earthquake and tsunami-wrecked Japan, would we really want to rely on nuclear reactors? Well, it turns out the suitcase-sized reactors would be much more stable than the monster, factory-sized reactors located throughout our nation and across the world. According to James Werner, the lead researcher on the project, “There would be no danger of meltdown… Because of the low power level…if we did have a situation where the power failed, the reactor itself would just shut down.”

Of course, one also has to take into consideration what sort of waste these things would generate, how often they would have to be refueled, and more. But, in light of the massive boost in exploration power they could provide (pun intended), such details seem to be exactly that: details. For now, researches are bent on thorough testing to see if these power packs are viable options.

Credit: SPACE.com.

Pluto's family grows, 07.29.11

The Hubble Telescope has added another great discovery to its repertoire; a fourth moon for Pluto. Temporarily assigned the name P4, it was discovered just this month orbiting around the dwarf planet with Charon, Nix, and Hydra, Pluto’s other moons.

Estimated to only be 8-21 miles wide, the tiny little rock is the smallest one to have been found orbiting Pluto. All the other moons orbiting Pluto are at least twice as large. Charon, the largest, is 648 miles across.

Astronomers anxiously wait for the day when the New Horizons spacecraft reaches the Pluto system in 2015. Launched in 2006, New Horizons is outfitted with a visible and infrared imager/spectrometer, an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, a radio science experiment to measure atmospheric temperature and composition, a telescopic camera, a solar wind and plasma spectrometer, an energetic particle spectrometer, and a dust counter to measure how much dust New Horizons on its way to Pluto.

Credit: NASA. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter.

NASA's plans for commercial space travel going forward, 06.30.11

A new dream for space travel that began 20 years ago is being revisited, and could be a reality in less than a decade. The HL-20, a spacecraft created from models made in the early 1980s, is in the process of testing.

Originally designed to serve as a “life raft” for the International Space Station (for which purpose it could still serve), the HL-20 was just recently unveiled by NASA as a commercial enterprise undertaken by their industrial partners.

“We’re only 60 days into CCDev2 (Commercial Crew Development 2), and their progress is right on schedule,” said Phil McAlister, acting director of NASA’s commercial spaceflight development program.        

HL-20. Image credit: NASA.

Credit: NASA. 

One of Saturn's moons: Helene. Image credit: NASA.

     On June 18, NASA received this image from their Cassini spacecraft. Helene is an irregularly shaped ice moon in orbit at an average distance of 234,500 miles away from Saturn, and is about 22 miles across. NASA dubbed it Saturn’s “ice queen” when they received the image from Cassini. The moon was discovered March 1, 1980, and is named after the mythical granddaughter of Kronos. Kronos was the Greek version of Rome’s god Saturn. Helene is one of Saturn’s 62 known moons, and one of the 53 actually given formal names.

     Credit: NASA and SPACE.com.