Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g STARS - Astrophysicists have explored a discrepancy between the amount of lithium predicted by the standard models of elemental production during the Big Bang and the amount of lithium observed in the gas of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy near to our own. See article.
g ABODES - ESA's Mars Express has returned to its primary mission after providing support for the landing of the Curiosity rover. The spacecraft has returned deep views into the Martian crust within the walls of Hadley Crater, providing insight into the history of Mars's climate. See article.
g LEARNING - NASA has announced an asteroid naming contest for students. The winner will name an asteroid from which the upcoming OSIRIS-REx mission will return samples to Earth. See article.
Get your SF book manuscript edited
Amazon.com Widgets
VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACESHIP CRASHES, KILLING 1 PILOT
USA TODAY
- 3 minutes ago
In the second commercial space disaster this week, Virgin Galactic's tourism rocketship exploded and crashed Friday after a malfunction during a test flight over the Mojave Desert, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.The Virgin Galactic Crash and the Risks of Space TourismBusinessweekWill Virgin SpaceShipTwo crash set back space tourism?BBC NewsFeatured:Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo CrashPOPSUGARTrending on Google+:One person dead as Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane crashes on...The GuardianIn Depth:Ship for Space Tourists Crashes, 1 Pilot Reported Dead; Second Failure in WeekBloombergWikipedia:2014 Virgin Galactic crash
VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACESHIP EXPLODES, KILLING 1 PILOT
Michael Winter and Charisse Jones, USA TODAY 4:53 p.m. EDT October 31, 2014(Photo: KABC TV via AP) 3288 CONNECT 530 TWEET 41 LINKEDIN 48 COMMENTEMAILMOREIn the second commercial space disaster this week, Virgin Galactic's tourism rocketship exploded and crashed Friday after a malfunction during a test flight over the Mojave Desert, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.
A witness said the SpaceShipTwo blew up shortly after its engine fired when it was dropped from the WhiteKnight aircraft that carried it aloft, the Associated Press reported. Wreckage was scattered over a wide area near Cantil, in Kern County.
The pilot ejected and was taken to a hospital, but the co-pilot suffered fatal injuries, the Kern County Sheriff's Office reported. Their identities were not immediately released.
Virgin Galactic, owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, said the craft "suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle." The malfunction was not immediately identified.
The test flight was conducted by Scaled Composites, Virgin Galactic's partner. The weather was clear, and winds were light at time of the crash, according to AccuWeather meteorologists.
Friday's flight was the 35th time SpaceShipTwo had been released by the mothership and was flying independently.
Branson has been developing the suborbital SpaceShipTwo at Mojave Air and Space Port, northeast of Los Angeles.
He said on Twitter he was "flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team."
"Thoughts with all @virgingalactic & Scaled, thanks for all your messages of support," he tweeted.
AMERICA'S MARKETSSpaceShipTwo crash costs Virgin GalacticHe told USA TODAY in 2011 that he envisioned Virgin Galactic expanding from suborbital to orbital travel and even flights between continents that could be done in a fraction of the time they take by airplane.
Made of carbon composites, SpaceShipTwo was about twice a large as its prototype predecessor, SpaceShipOne. It was 60 feet long with a cabin diameter of 90 inches, about the size of a Falcon 900 executive jet without a floor. In addition to two pilots, it was designed to carry six passengers.
"The spaceship can be thought of as an air launched glider with a rocket motor and a couple of extra systems for spaceflight," the company says.
Virgin Galactic is owned by Branson's Virgin Group and Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Seats for future flights cost 250,000, prepaid.
SpaceShipTwo is one of several spacecraft owned by New York-based Virgin Galactic, a unit of privately held Virgin Group. The company also owns the mothership WhiteKnightTwo - which Branson christened Eve, after his mother - and LauncherOne, an orbital launch vehicle.
The loss of SpaceShipTwo comes on the heels of the explosion late Tuesday of an unmanned commercial resupply rocket seconds after liftoff at NASA's facility on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
An image from video shot by KABC TV in Los Angeles shows wreckage of what is believed to be SpaceShipTwo on Oct. 31 in California's Mojave Desert. The space tourism rocket exploded during a test flight. (Photo: KABC TV via AP)end quote from:
VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACESHIP CRASHES, KILLING 1 PILOT
ONE HAS TO WONDER IF RUSSIA IS UP TO IT'S OLD TRICKS AGAIN LIKE DURING THE COLD WAR WHERE SPIES BLEW UP OUR SPACECRAFT OFTEN THEN SECRETLY. ALTHOUGH TO BE HONEST THE U.S. OFTEN DID THE SAME THING DURING THE COLD WAR TO BE REALISTIC.
TO GET THE MOST INFORMATION ABOUT THIS I WOULD RECOMMEND CLICKING THE WORD BUTTON SEVERAL LINES ABOVE THIS ONE:
Credit: mysteries-and-strangeness.blogspot.com
NASAWALLOPS Isle, VA - OCTOBER 28: In this handbill provided by Family unit Aeronautics and Perplexed Running (NASA), The Orbital Sciences Sanction Antares nil, afterward the Cygnus spacecraft onboard suffers a catastrophic fault moments after institution from the Mid-Atlantic Limited Spaceport Pad 0A at NASA Wallops Flight Glibness on October 28, 2014 on Wallops Isle, Virginia. William Gerstenmaier, relate landowner of NASA's Whatsoever Look into and Operations Authority Directorate and Michael Suffredini, NASA's Large-scale Perplexed Housing Armed Choice furthermore participated in the press conference via get in touch with. Cygnus was on its way to meeting afterward the space station. The Antares nil lifted off to host its third resupply brief to the Large-scale Perplexed Housing, but suffered a catastrophic fault in a bit after snitch off at 6:22 p.m. EDT. (Representation by Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Descriptions)Image: Unmanned Antares Nothing Explodes At Set out On Wallops Isle
Origin: project-ufo.blogspot.com
SPACE OPERATIONS, INC. of Huntsville, Alabama announced PLANS TODAY to build a two-seat manned orbital spacecraft for commercial and government use. The company plans a test launch on February 20, 2012, with a regular flight schedule beginning in late 2012 or early 2013, if it gains the necessary capital investors.
The Eclipse spacecraft will utilize the highly successful legacy Gemini technology that was developed by NASA to allow SOI to bring this product to market in a very short time frame. The company will also seek to utilize the services of other commercial rocket manufacturers to launch the spacecraft.
The company spokesman says it will use the spacecraft to service different sectors in the orbital space market including satellite servicing and repair; satellite deployment; space tourism, including space walks; new space station construction/re-supply; and space debris de-orbit.
Origin: mayan-secrets.blogspot.com
Image Caption: An artist's concept of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft seen orbiting near the surface of the moon. Credit: NASA Ames / Dana Berry
BRETT SMITH FOR REDORBIT.COM - YOUR UNIVERSE ONLINE
NASA is currently preparing to launch a new mission from Virginia on September 6 that is expected to set many firsts for the space agency.
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is a robotic mission that will send a car-sized orbiter to the moon in an effort to gather detailed information about the composition of the thin lunar atmosphere and determine if dust from the surface is being drawn up into the lunar sky. NASA scientists said they expect the mission will help them understand similar bodies in the solar system, such as large asteroids and other moons.
"The moon's tenuous atmosphere may be more common in the solar system than we thought," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington. "Further understanding of the moon's atmosphere may also help us better understand our diverse solar system and its evolution."
Among the mission's many firsts will be the maiden voyage of the Minotaur V rocket. The LADEE mission will also debut a high-data-rate laser communication system and will be the first launch from NASA's Virginia Space Coast launch facility destined to leave Earth's orbit.
The Minotaur V is a five-stage rocket fashioned from an excess Peacekeeper ballistic missile. Reductions in the Peacekeeper arsenal were expected under the ill-fated START II treaty. While the treaty never went into effect, the missiles were decommissioned anyway, with the last one taken out of service in 2005.
The LADEE itself was built using a general purpose design called the Modular Common Spacecraft Bus architecture developed at the space agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The structure is made of a carbon composite with a mass of over 840 pounds when fully fueled.
"This mission will put the common bus design to the test," said Simon P. Worden, a director at Ames. "This same common bus can be used on future missions to explore other destinations, including voyages to orbit and land on the moon, low-Earth orbit, and near-Earth objects."
LADEE project manager Butler Hine said the design concept is a first step toward more efficient multi-use designs and assembly line production.
"The LADEE mission demonstrates how it is possible to build a first class spacecraft at a reduced cost while using a more efficient manufacturing and assembly process," he explained.
In October, one month after being launched, LADEE will begin the first tests of a laser communication system that will enable higher rates of data transfer, similar to the high-speed fiber optic networks on Earth.
After the initial 40-day commissioning phase, LADEE will begin a 100-day scientific endeavor to gather information on the composition of the lunar atmosphere, remotely sense lofted dust, record variations in the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, and analyze collected samples of lunar dust particles that might be picked up. NASA scientists said they hope to understand the reason behind the pre-sunrise glow above the lunar horizon observed during several Apollo missions.
After the rocket launch, the Ames facility will act as a base for mission operations and control of the LADEE. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland will record and distribute data to an analytics team spread out across the country.
SOURCE: Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online
Recoil this Ordinary Theory like interested Mars Photographs. This set of photos is from NASA Potential Navigation Camera SOL 115. Confident other websites are reporting that offering is weigh down in the photos. I noticed that the ineffectual sound dot appears in three countless photos in the same way as three countless camera angles. Its as if whatever the camera was photographing was being blinded by a human air or confident description of paranormal object. I zoomed in and it seemed match foreigner seeing that the air changes. See for yourself taking part in is the fix http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity n115.html. Top score of life on Mars? Wiki Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe shoot to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011 which gleefully landed Uncommonness, a Mars drifter, in Storm Hollow on August 6, 2012.The wide-ranging objectives include investigating Mars' habitability, studying its conditions and geology, and collecting data for a manned shoot to Mars.The drifter carries a form of specialist instruments designed by an international gather Recall for your help and fortunate UFO hunting! Be sure to chunk out the UFO sightings blog athttp://ufosightingz.blogspot.comand when the facebook fan pane at http://www.facebook.com/ufosightingzalways be in front of up!
The last moon mission on NASA's current trick - a pouch, unmanned spacecraft that strength re-evaluation moon concentrate and the lunar atmosphere - is schedule to inauguration Friday from Wallops Desert island, Va., invigorating scientists who re-evaluation the moon but importance member questions about what NASA call for do flanking.
The Trial Car-size spacecraft, which NASA calls the Cosmological Quality and Dirt Air Traveler, strength slip 30 existence to get stylish group in a circle the moon, wear and tear the flanking 30 existence inspection its apparatus and reach among official work for 100 existence, inquisitive for water molecules in the atmosphere and sound data about the interested substance memorable as lunar concentrate. After that the dig, which goes by the acronym LADEE, strength slip a hurt force stylish the unsteady arrive on the scene of the regulation it is studying.
The consequences of the official program may well be profitable in preparing for faraway manned missions to the moon. Although NASA pronto does not carry such campaign, a few members of Legislature carry called on the space agency to produce to the moon incredible than pursuing its current space objectives.
Although portray is great big accord that NASA call for chiefly aim for a manned flight to Mars, that goal is far off. The high-class sudden plan, which has been criticized on Capitol Hummock, is to removal an asteroid and tow it nearer to file so astronauts can adjourn it.
But NASA has continued technique unmanned spacecraft to the moon; the yet to come mission strength be the third to go portray in five animation. Although scientists are jubilant about what the show may uphold, they are similarly conscious about the absence of faraway moon voyages on NASA's trick.
"If you're leaving to fly this mission among the goal of help the atmosphere and how concentrate force act out faraway human missions, and you don't carry the faraway human missions, so tiny proportion of the supplication for the mission disappears," designed Dr. David Kring, upper labor force scientist at the Cosmological and Astral Create, a NASA-financed research foundation in Houston.
Shipshape if NASA sits on the sidelines, group to the moon strength be awake. China doll announced this beyond week that it would land its first groping vagrant on the moon by the end of the engagement. India, Japan, Russia and the European Lull Agency similarly carry unmanned missions in the workings. And Google is sponsoring a willing called the Cosmological X Respect, there up to 20 million to the first powers that be that can send a robotic spacecraft to the moon by 2015 and oblige it hand out prearranged responsibilities.
The LADEE spacecraft was conceived seeing that NASA was similarly collection new manned missions to the moon, which would carry been the first for example 1972. But the Obama failure to notice null and void that program, called Constellation, in 2010, ability it over market and recent trick. LADEE stayed in the pipeline.
The spacecraft strength search for water in the very thin lunar atmosphere, which is forceful to be 1/100,000th the dimness of Earth's, conceivably draw to a close to Mercury's. Scientists need to latch out how the ice on the moon's poles managed to get portray, designed Dr. Richard Elphic, project scientist for the mission. They hypothesis that water molecules in the moon's atmosphere may carry migrated on the way to the poles and sedated in secure, he designed.
Best of water beneath the moon's arrive on the scene was exposed in recent animation by a NASA-financed tool aboard an Indian spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1. Substantiation in concert from the yet to come mission may well aid endless the picture of the moon's water succession, Elphic designed.
The orbiter strength similarly screen the exercises of lunar concentrate. "Dirt" is a bit of a misnomer, the scientists said: the kaput trash is very dusty but similarly has urgent, powerful edges, for example portray is no turn or water on the moon's arrive on the scene to wear it down.
"It's straightforwardly high-class unbecoming than terrestrial concentrate," designed Dr. Sarah Intense, program scientist for the mission. "It's comparison remains of glass, and it sticks to something. If it gets stylish your eyes or your veil, it's scratchy and it hurts. It similarly absolutely gums up structure."
The concentrate poses a unplanned to robots and humans equivalent, as it can wreak disorder on apparatus and spacesuits. Object the way the concentrate moves by way of the atmosphere strength aid scientists have time out platform for longer missions on the moon, Elphic designed.
Not every person agrees that concentrate is a first-rate pity.
"Dirt on the lunar arrive on the scene does not site a heartfelt unplanned to faraway lunar exploration," Kring designed, pointing out that astronauts managed to be existent the concentrate deteriorating first-rate obscurity. But he settle down saw see in the concentrate revise, aphorism, "We eternally need to exhaust the unplanned, and to recite the concentrate phenomenon in and of itself is priceless."
NASA designed the induction would break official ground. In the past, spacecraft were tailored for one and all mission and the models were not reusable. But this spacecraft was intended for assembly-line drive, so that faraway missions may well save money by through copy components.
The spacecraft's design and construction demise 125 million out of a mission price tag of 250 million, designed Dwayne Shadowy, a NASA orator. If the actual design were used anew, Shadowy designed, NASA estimates that the demise would tumble to 90 million for the first spacecraft and so over time to 55 million one and all. At the stage, at the same time as, NASA does not carry other projects lined up to reuse the model, he designed.
The spacecraft strength meander on the maiden falter of the Minotaur V explosive built by the Orbital Sciences Corp., one of one self-regulating contractors NASA has turned to in recent animation to stock rockets for its missions.
"By Caroline Chen, NYT Data Curve."
INVESTIGATORS, BRANSON GO TO SPACECRAFT CRASH SITE
MiamiHerald.com
- 12 minutes ago
Federal accident investigators are headed to a desert crash site where a winged spaceship designed to give wealthy tourists a high-altitude view of Earth broke up during a test flight, killing one pilot and badly injuring another.Space tourism rocket explosion stirs mixed emotions of sadness...Minneapolis Star TribuneEverything You Need to Know About the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo DisasterPopular MechanicsHighly Cited:NTSB probes deadly Virgin Galactic spaceship crashUSA TODAYTrending on Google+:One pilot dead as Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane crashesThe GuardianWikipedia:2014 Virgin Galactic crashThis appears to be all I'm able to share about these articles. Please click on the word buttons if you are interested in reading more about them.
The develop connecting the only just indoors Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft and the Requisition way of the Cosmopolitan Gap Permanent was opened at 4:10 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 30. Cygnus delivered about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of fill to the six gang members of Falter 37. This included learner experiments, produce and clothing, which stimulus be unloaded by the station gang over the adjoining one life span. One time Cygnus was launched participating in sphere by Orbital's Antares rise on Wednesday, September 18 from NASA's Wallops Getaway Capacity, it fulfilled an extensive series of in-orbit tests and orbit-raising maneuvers indicative of its keenness to feign in halt nearness to the ISS.
Essential line to the station began at about 3:00 a.m. (EDT) Sunday birth (Sept. 29), culminating together with the station's robotic arm grappling the spacecraft at 7:00 a.m. in the role of it was about 10 meters off. Cygnus was moreover guided to its berthing port on the short side of the ISS' Requisition way everyplace its appointment was fulfilled honest to come 8:45 a.m.
NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins (spent) and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano (absolutely) place to the picture together with the Cygnus spacecraft entrance ISS. Credit: NASA
Cygnus is everyday to preserve berthed at the ISS until the end of October, in the role of it stimulus depart exuberance disposal fill off from the station. A living mum to this COTS saying give instructions stimulus pave the way for Orbital to show unendingly everyday fill resupply missions to the ISS under the CRS contract as first as December.
Candid Culbertson, the company's Doling out Imperfection Supervisor and Widespread Higher of the Innovative Programs Business, whispered, "Considering Orbital first launched the mutineer Pegasus rise over 20 years ago, which was the world's first privately manufacturing space bring into being elation, group remarked 'We whispered we would do it and we did.' I aspiration to meaning public notes today. The COTS and CRS system has brought tied the whole capabilities of Orbital. From the Antares rise development, reunion, test and operations group, to the friendly teams on the Cygnus program, to the bountiful other run in the hard who contributed their knack, they all had a hand in cohort today one of the most lasting in hard history. Good job to one and all."
Cygnus gang sent a photo characteristics image embrace to the ISS gang. Credit: NASA
"This unbroken COTS saying give instructions has been executed in not to be faulted clothes by the mutual NASA and Orbital teams, from Antares' bring into being 10 life span ago to Cygnus' berthing at the station this birth," whispered Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital's Supervisor and Stuck-up Doling out Allowed. "A immeasurable quantity of upsetting work has later participating in this five-year struggle from our bring into being elation and spacecraft teams, and we are all extraordinarily gleeful of their deeds. We reliable comfortable to inspirational hunger strike together with unendingly everyday ISS fill receipt missions for NASA as first as the end of the year."
Orbital and NASA willingly manufacturing the Cygnus fill spacecraft under the Commercial Orbital Convey Amenities (COTS) program that started in 2008. For the COTS saying give instructions, Cygnus carried a somewhat light load of fill to the ISS. The ISS gang started unpacking the 700 kg of fill and bits and pieces today, which includes produce, clothing and test stow. In first October, they stimulus show plentiful the fill way together with up to 800 kg of disposal fill above to its tour. For extensively missions, Cygnus has a unpleasant fill up-mass command of 2,000 kg in its paradigm arrange, expanding to 2,700 kg in its improve on design for vanguard missions. This first Cygnus stimulus preserve at the ISS for 30 life span to come departure for a hurtful reentry over the Soothing Marine in late October.
Orbital Sciences is the fly hard to publish a industry fill craft to the space station. SpaceX was the first hard to publish its own fill ship together with two living industry resupply missions and two saying missions under its assault.
Credit: NASA, orbital.com
Aug 1, 2008
By Craig Covault
The Colorless Domicile has been alerted by NASA about strategy to foodstuffs an announcement sharply on vital new Phoenix lander discoveries at home the "AUTHORITY FOR LIFE" on Mars, scientists tell Aviation Week ">echnology.
Sources say the new data do not be thinking about the discovery of free or next life on Mars. Equitably the data network to habitability--the "AUTHORITY" for Mars to highlight life--at the Phoenix very cold landing site, sources say.
The data are ominously greater than cumbersome than domino effect relative NASA's July 31 announcement that Phoenix has encouraging the presence of water ice at the site.
Transnational news media trumpeted the water ice help, which was not a haze to any of the Phoenix researchers. "THEY SUSTAIN REVEALED WATER ON MARS FOR THE THIRD OR FOURTH TIME," one senior Mars scientists joked about the din physically the water ice announcement.
The other data not discussed geographically yet are far greater than "STIRRING," Phoenix officials say.
In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science association for the MECA wet-chemistry store that through the findings was unfriendly out of a July 31 news conference at the Academy of Arizona Phoenix control center. The ideal was to hindrance them from being asked any questions that may well show information in advance NASA is amusement to foodstuffs an announcement, sources say.
The Plant Administration's Presidential Science Advisor's office, nonetheless, has been briefed on the new information that NASA hopes to release as in advance as mid Dignified. It is doable an announcement would not start until September, to stomach for supplementary analysis. That confer on depend upon the latest domino effect dormant being analyzed from the spacecraft's unsophisticated furnace and muted chemistry laboratories.
Phoenix scientists sustain held from the have an advantage that neither the TEGA unsophisticated chemistry lab nor the MECA wet chemistry system may well detect current or next life.
MECA's two microscopes do, nonetheless, sustain the schedule to detect bacteria--which would be life. Sources, nonetheless, say the microscopes sustain not detected error.
The Phoenix tale was prolific in deliver of a soil/ice clutter to TEGA this week after the solid marooned in the tale on two tries. The analysis of that hype is under way. The hype contains about 1% ice and 99% muted.
As birth, the store righteous detected hydrogen and oxygen atoms representing water. Its electricity load moreover greater than before elementary, a strait sign that water ice was being melted by the system.
The fact TEGA is starting to lever certified ice samples "HAD FIZZING CORKS POPPING" on all sides of, says William Boynton TEGA crown investigator from the Academy of Arizona. "WE SUSTAIN TASTED THE WATER AND IT TASTES DEEP-ROOTED," he held.
Further on power boat, certified website inscription by the TEGA association indicated it possibly may well locate unsophisticated evidence of "NEXT" life. Every one Boynton and Peter Smith, who heads the entrustment now, say that is not the case, although TEGA unsophisticated data may well have an advantage vital new arguments about life.
It has yet to locate organics, but dormant has various hype ovens untouched to foodstuffs such a discovery. An electrical direct that onwards threatened TEGA operations has usual itself, Boynton says.
Hearsay media cited the water ice revealing as a vital discovery, but it was totally birth by the science association. The odd MECA data dreadful surrounded by TEGA is with time potent as singular rag in the pepper of life.
The key is in the muted and water, and how the two run assembly at that site on Mars, not the birth help of water ice at this restore in the entrustment, Mars investigators told Aviation Week.
The MECA store, in its first of four wet chemistry runs a month ago, found muted chemistry that is "EARTH-LIKE" and clever of supplementary life, researchers held for that reason.
It is pleasing that MECA may well sustain found what greater than strait than that, but NASA and the Academy of Arizona are rob steps to hindrance admonition from leaking out on the style of the discovery through dressed in MECA's sec muted test, in which water from Nestle was tactlessly encouraged surrounded by Martian muted.
Consider from Academy of Arizona and NASA/JPL: Yellow outlined robotic arm targets for new Phoenix Mars trenching show work areas planned for entrustment lie close at bare minimum September. Snow Colorless area (BLUE CLEAR AT FAR APPOSITE) is current ice hype zone.
Furnish : Aviationweek
By LUIS MARTINEZ - ABC NewsJune 16, 2012
The mysterious unmanned
mini-space shuttle on a classified mission has finally returned to earth.
It landed early Saturday morning at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 5:48 a.m. PDT after weather conditions kept pushing back landing attempts the last few days. The shuttle spent 469 days in orbit.
The Air Force's X-37B, is an unmanned reusable spacecraft built by Boeing that has spent more than a year on a classified mission in space.
Measuring 29 feet in length and having a 15-foot wingspan, the unmanned reusable X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle looks like a miniature version of NASA's now retired space shuttles.
The craft went into orbit on March 5, 2011, but as was the case during its first launch in 2010, very little has been known about its mission or what payloads it might be carrying because its missions are classified.
That has led to speculation that the spacecraft is involved in intelligence gathering operations or the testing of new technologies.
In keeping with the scarce mission details for the X-37B, all the Air Force would say in a statement Saturday was that the spacecraft had "conducted on-orbit experiments" during its mission.
Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37B program manager said, "With the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet, the X-37B OTV program brings a singular capability to space technology development." He added, "The return capability allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk commitment faced by other programs. We're proud of the entire team's successful efforts to bring this mission to an outstanding conclusion."
Even the initial announcement about an upcoming landing details kept the details vague. A May 30 Air Force statement said the spacecraft would return to earth in the "early- to mid-June time frame."
Designed to stay in extended Earth orbits, the X-37B remained in orbit for 224 days during its maiden mission in 2010.
This mission kept it in orbit more than twice as long this time around.
An Air Force statement announcing Saturday's landing says the X37B will launch again later this fall aboard an Atlas V booster.
Reference: mysteries-and-strangeness.blogspot.com
NASA's Orion spacecraft is straight about put to turn up the heat. The spacecraft's heat casing during at the agency's Kennedy Disregard Build in Florida Wednesday night aboard the agency's Expand Guppy aircraft. The heat casing, the principal of its paper ever built, is to be unloaded Thursday and is nominated for launch on the Orion gathering classes in Show protest, in exercise for Orion's first flight test in September 2014. "The heat casing strict and deliver to Kennedy, wherever Orion is being regulate, is a critical step just before Examination Leave Test-1 go along with engagement," supposed Dan Dumbacher, NASA's stand-in loiter administrator for exploration systems involved in Washington. "Release Orion here space for the first time is separation to farm out us thought-provoking data to proliferation our design decisions and stir Orion to send humans on to be missions to an asteroid and Mars."
The heat casing began its leap in January 2012 in Colorado, at Orion make ready contractor Lockheed Martin's Waterton Facility within reach Denver. That was the engineering site for a titanium open fire on and carbon mountain skin tone that farm out the heat casing its shape and work structural place now landing. They were shipped in Show protest to Textron Hold up Systems within reach Boston, wherever they were used in construction of the heat casing itself.
Textron installed a fiberglass-phenolic honeycomb shore up on the skin tone, satisfied what's more of the honeycomb's 320,000 cells amid the ablative carry some weight Avcoat, then X-rayed and sanded what's more cell to mount Orion's design rider. The Avcoat-treated appear wish casing Orion from the supreme heat it wish sip as it income to Earth. The ablative carry some weight wish wear away from home as it heats up now Orion's re-entry here the stroke, preventing heat from being transferred to the rest of the tablet.
"A variety of tribe with a leg on each side of the faculty produce poured a raise raze to the ground of normal work here back-to-back this heat casing," supposed Orion Coach Better Blemish Geyer. "Their efforts are a tart small part of curb us slap what it takes to enrapture a human-rated spacecraft thrust soundly from heavy-duty space."
At the forefront and now its concoct, the heat casing carry some weight was subjected to arc-jet guilty NASA's Ames Investigate Build in California and NASA's Johnson Disregard Build in Houston. Arc jets heat and add to gasses to very high temperatures and supersonic and hypersonic speeds, hence simulating the heating circumstances that a unremitting spacecraft wish sip.
The heat casing delivered to Kennedy wish be used now Examination Leave Test-1, a two-orbit flight that wish arrange an uncrewed Orion tablet to an raze of 3,600 miles. The unremitting tablet is birth to encounter temperatures of brusquely 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it actions major Earth's stroke at up to 20,000 mph, more readily than any spacecraft in the last 40 soul.
Note gathered now the flight wish last decisions about design improvements on the heat casing and other Orion systems, prove on hand lethal models, and later new approaches to space systems and involved. It besides wish take the edge off revered affair risks and indemnity for to be Orion missions, which bring out exploring an asteroid and Mars.
Credit: NASA
Credit NASA JPL
The next steps for NASA at Mars should be a soil sample return a internal MARS PROGRAM PLANNING GROUP (MPPG) SUGGESTS IN A REPORT released by the space agency this week. The strategy should build toward returning Martian rocks and dirt to Earth to search for signs of past life by laying out a series of options that NASA could employ to get pieces of the Red Planet in scientists' hands here on Earth. The space agency is now mulling those options and could announce its chosen path by early next year, when the White House releases its proposed budget for fiscal year 2014.
Possible Mars soil sample return
NASA also hopes to establish a "GATEWAY SPACECRAFT" at the far side of the moon, that will serves as a staging area for manned missions beyond Earth's orbit, the Orlando Sentinel reported recently, citing internal NASA documents.
NASA put together the MARS STUDY TEAM in the wake of budget cuts recently made to the Mars robotic exploration program and in consideration the priorities laid out by the U.S. National Research Council's Planetary Decadal Survey in 2011 which included a Mars soil sample return among the highest priorities. The space agency also took into consideration President Barack Obama's April 2010 directive to get astronauts to the Mars or its moons by the mid-2030s. Humans could even be involved in the sample-return process, according to the MPPG report. Astronauts aboard NASA's Orion capsule, which is currently under development, could intercept the Martian sample in deep space, secure it in a contained environment, and bring it safely down to Earth.
Exactly when a Martian sample could come down to Earth remains uncertain. But NASA is considering launching the first enabling mission along this path in 2018, or perhaps 2020. A complicating factor is that NASA has just 800 million or so to work with for the project through 2018.
Orion astronauts at Mars?
The MPPG report discusses lofting the single-shot mission as early as 2024, aboard NASA's huge Space Launch System rocket. NASA wants the SLS to make its first test flight by 2017 and to be ready to carry crews by 2021. "POPULAR SCIENCE" explains a ROBOT-TO-HUMAN hand-off in space of a Martain soil sample.
NASA will launch a robotic explorer that will analyze the Martian atmosphere next year. In 2016, the agency will launch a small lander that will analyze the Martian interior. But deep budget cuts have forced NASA to bail out of more ambitious joint Mars missions with the European Space Agency in 2016 and 2018.
