An Ignoble Experiment: Universe Today - 10 new stories for 2013/12/31

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10 new stories for 2013/12/31

What's Ahead for Human Rated SpaceX Dragon in 2014 – Musk tells Universe Today

Falcon 9 SpaceX CRS-2 launch of Dragon spacecraft on March 1, 2013 to the ISS from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, Florida.- shot from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building. During 2014, SpaceX plans two flight tests simulating human crewed Dragon emergency abort scenarios launching from right here at pad 40. Credit: Ken Kremer/www.kenkremer.com

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL – A trio of American companies – SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada – are working diligently to restore America's capability to launch humans into low Earth orbit from US soil, aided by seed money from NASA's Commercial Crew Program in a public-private partnership.

We've been following the solid progress made by all three companies. Here we'll focus on two crucial test flights planned by SpaceX in 2014 to human rate and launch the crewed version of their entry into the commercial crew 'space taxi' sweepstakes, namely the Dragon spacecraft.

Recently I had the opportunity to speak about the upcoming test flights with the head of SpaceX, Elon Musk.

So I asked Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, about “what's ahead in 2014″; specifically related to(...)
Read the rest of What's Ahead for Human Rated SpaceX Dragon in 2014 – Musk tells Universe Today (914 words)

© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: cape canaveral, CCP, Commercial Crew, commercial crew capability, Dragon capsule, Dragon space taxi, Elon Musk, Falcon 9, Falcon 9 v.1.1, Interntional space station ISS, ISS, low earth orbit, NASA, space taxi, SpaceX, SpaceX Dragon

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China's Lunar Lander Spotted by Orbiting Spacecraft

Image of Chang’e-3 (top arrow) and Yutu rover captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on Dec. 25 UTC

Not much on the Moon escapes the eyes of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and China’s Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu rover are no exception! The pair touched down on the lunar surface on Dec. 14, and just over a week later on Dec. 25 LRO acquired the image above, showing the lander and the 120-kg (265-lb) “Jade Rabbit” rover at their location near the Moon’s Sinus Iridum region.

The width of the narrow-angle camera image is 576 meters; north is up. LRO was about 150 km (93 miles) from the Chang’e-3 site when the image was acquired.

So how can we be so sure that those bright little specks are actually human-made robots and not just a couple of basaltic boulders? Find out below:

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Read the rest of China’s Lunar Lander Spotted by Orbiting Spacecraft (303 words)

© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: ASU, Chang'e, China, Jade Rabbit, LRO, LROC, Moon, NASA, orbit, yutu

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Astronomy Cast Ep. 327: Telescope Making, Part 2: Serious Gear

Some astronomers are control freaks. It's not enough to buy a telescope, they want to craft every part of the experience with their own hands. If you're ready, and willing to get your hands dirty (and covered in glass dust), you can join thousands of amateur telescope makers and build your own telescope from scratch.

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Read the rest of Astronomy Cast Ep. 327: Telescope Making, Part 2: Serious Gear (46 words)

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The Quadrantid Meteor Shower-One of the Best Bets for 2014

The modern radiant of the Quadrantid meteor shower. (Photo and grahpics by author).

The modern radiant of the Quadrantid meteor shower. (Photo and graphics by author).

If there's one thing we love, it's a good meteor shower from an obscure and defunct constellation.

Never heard of the Quadrantids? It may well be because this brief but intense annual meteor shower occurs in the early days of January. Chilly temps greet any would be meteor watchers with hardly the balmy climes of showers such as the August Perseids. Still, 2014 presents some good reasons to brave the cold in the first week of January, to just possibly catch the best meteor shower of the year.(...)
Read the rest of The Quadrantid Meteor Shower-One of the Best Bets for 2014 (808 words)

© David Dickinson for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: 2014 astronomy, ison meteor shower, mural quadrant, obsolete constellations, quadrans muralis, Quadrantid Meteor Shower, quadrantid prospects, the quadrantids, the quads

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Jan. 16 May Be Last Best Chance to Search for Comet ISON's Remains

Comet ISON revolves around the sun in steeply inclined orbit. Earth will pass through the plane of that orbit on Jan. 16. As we look “up” toward the comet, ISON’s dust stacks up along our line of sight and could appear temporarily brighter. Credit: solarsystemscope.com with annotations and additions by Bob King

Is there any hope of detecting what’s left of Comet ISON after the sun proved too much for its delicate constitution? German amateur astronomer Uwe Pilz suggest there remains a possibility that a photographic search might turn up a vestige of the comet when Earth crosses its orbital plane on January 16, 2014. (...)
Read the rest of Jan. 16 May Be Last Best Chance to Search for Comet ISON’s Remains (718 words)

© Bob King for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Comet ISON, L4 PANSTARRS, tail simulation, Uwe Pilz

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Bigelow Gives You A Chance To Be A Simulated Astronaut. Here's How To Apply

A view from the Bigelow prototype (Bigelow Aerospace)

Bigelow — that company that has two inflatable structures in orbit and that plans to add an inflatable room to the International Space Station — is looking for help. The company is asking people to come to its Las Vegas facility and pretend to be astronauts for a few hours, to better test spacecraft ideas.

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Read the rest of Bigelow Gives You A Chance To Be A Simulated Astronaut. Here’s How To Apply (209 words)

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Spider-Like Spacecraft Aims To Touch A Comet Next Year After Rosetta Reactivates

Watch out, you comet, Rosetta is on its way with a probe. The European Space Agency spacecraft is preparing to wake up in January from a nearly three-year-long hibernation period to ready for a close encounter with Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

If all goes well, Rosetta should reach its destination in August and — after a couple of months in a mapping orbit — comes another exciting bit: the probe will deploy a spider-like lander called Philae on the surface in November. That will be the first time anything has soft-landed on a comet.

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Read the rest of Spider-Like Spacecraft Aims To Touch A Comet Next Year After Rosetta Reactivates (359 words)

© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | 3 comments |
Post tags: Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, philae, rosetta

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Videopalooza Shows Off Phobos Flyby As Moon's Mysterious Origins Probed

There won’t be any pictures out of this close encounter, but the animations sure were spectacular. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft skimmed just 45 kilometers (28 miles) above the surface of the moon Phobos yesterday, and through these various videos you can see what the orbital trajectory would have looked like during that time.

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Yutu Flexes Robot Arm then Enters Hibernation During Long Lunar Night

1st Chang’e-3 Lunar Panorama
Portion of 1st panorama around Chang'e-3 landing site showing China's Yutu rover leaving tracks in the lunar soil as it drives across the Moon's surface on Dec. 15, 2013. Images taken by Chang'e-3 lander following Dec. 14 touchdown. Panoramic view was created from screen shots of a news video assembled into a mosaic.
Credit: CNSA/CCTV/screenshot mosaics & processing by Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer
See below robotic arm screenshots – - Story updated

As night fell on the Earth's Moon, China's Yutu rover and mothership lander have both entered a state of hibernation determined to survive the frigidly harsh lunar night upon the magnificently desolate gray plains.

Yutu went to sleep at 5:23 a.m. Dec. 26, Beijing time, upon a command sent by mission control at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC), according to China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND).

The Chang'e-3 lander began its long nap hours earlier at (...)
Read the rest of Yutu Flexes Robot Arm then Enters Hibernation During Long Lunar Night (825 words)

© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | 13 comments |
Post tags: Apollo Moon landings, bay of rainbows, Chang'E-3, China, china space program, LRO, Mare Imbrium, Moon, Soviet Union, Yutu rover

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Spacewalkers Battle Camera Glitch, Pull Back For Another Day

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy attempted to install UrtheCast cameras on the space station on Dec. 27, 2013, but the cameras did not send telemetry as expected. At the time, the cause of the problem was not known. The Expedition 38 astronauts were instructed to bring the cameras back inside for more analysis. Credit: Rick Mastracchio (Twitter)

Customers eager to watch live, high-definition images of Earth may have to wait a bit longer. Two Russian spacewalkers were unable to get two UrtheCast cameras to function despite spending eight hours and seven minutes outside yesterday (Dec. 27) — the longest spacewalk in Russian history.

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Read the rest of Spacewalkers Battle Camera Glitch, Pull Back For Another Day (403 words)

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