22 December 2010
Saison Greetings from the ISS
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22 December 2010
Apollo 8: Christmas At The Moon
Christmas Eve, 1968. As one of the most turbulent, tragic years in American history drew to a close, millions around the world were watching and listening as the Apollo 8 astronauts - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders - became the first humans to orbit another world.
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22 December 2010
Obama Signs Short-term Funding Bill
U.S. President Barack Obama on Dec. 22 signed into law a short-term appropriations bill that will keep the federal government, including NASA, funded at 2010 spending levels through March 4, according to a White House news release.
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22 December 2010
NASA Awards First Half-Million Order In Lunar Data Contract
NASA has awarded the initial half-million-dollar task order from a $10 million NASA contract to Astrobotic Technology for a robotic expedition to the Moon. The company will design, build, and test the primary structure of its lunar lander under the assignment. The company is participating in the Google Lunar X-Prize. The Astrobotic spacecraft will be sent to a lunar trajectory by a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX.
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22 December 2010
DLR Researchers Compile Atlas Of Saturn's Moon Rhea
Researchers at the German Aerospace Center have compiled an atlas of Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea, which has been published by NASA. The atlas includes a number of high-resolution images and a three-dimensional view of fractures on the icy world acquired by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn for six and a half years.
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21 December 2010
Orbital Test Fires First Stage Engine For Taurus II Rocket
Orbital Sciences has announced that it successfully carried out a long-duration test firing of the liquid-fueled AJ26 rocket engine that will power the first stage of the company's Taurus II space launch vehicle.
Orbital is developing the Taurus II medium-class space launch vehicle to boost payloads into a variety of low Earth and geosynchronous transfer orbits and Earth escape trajectories. It is also intended for NASA's COTS programme.
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21 December 2010
NASA Might Merge Human Spaceflight, Operations Directorates
NASA is considering a plan to merge its space operations and human spaceflight mission directorates to better align with the U.S. space agency’s manned spaceflight goals, according to NASA officials. In a Dec. 20 memo to agency employees, the heads of NASA’s Exploration Systems and Space Operations mission directorates said they had been tasked by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to formulate a plan for combining the two organizations and report back to the agency chief in early 2011.
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20 December 2010
Voyager Crosses Point Of Solar Stillness
The 33-year odyssey of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar wind.
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19 December 2010
Japan's low-cost space programme pushes the limits
Despite its shoestring budget, Japan's space programme has boldly reached for the stars, pioneering solar-powered galactic travel, exploring a distant asteroid and planning a robot base on the Moon.
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17 December 2010
Virgin Galactic To Join NASA Submissions For Orbital Spaceflights
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has announced that it will be supporting Sierra Nevada Space Systems' (SNC) and Orbital Sciences Corporation's (OSC) work on commercial space vehicles.
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17 December 2010
Paolo Nespoli arrives at the Space Station
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16 December 2010
NASA's arsenic life-form scientist answers critics
"The speed of communication is ahead of the sheer time needed to think and get in the lab and work," Felisa Wolfe-Simon, lead author of the study published in Science earlier this month, wrote on the micro-blogging site Twitter, in an apparent reference to critiques that lit up the blogosphere after the December 2 study.
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14 December 2010
France's Industrial Policy And Future Of The Space Sector
On Tuesday, 14 December 2010, President Sarkozy went to the French department of Eure to pay a field visit devoted to French industry and more particularly the future of the space sector. The aim is clear: to preserve industrial capability and business expertise in France. The President's declared ambition is successfully to cross the threshold of a new industrial revolution.
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14 December 2010
Boeing Submits Proposal For Second Round Of NASA CCDev Program
Boeing has submitted its proposal for the second round of NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. Boeing plans to advance the design of its Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft and Commercial Crew Transportation System and continue to demonstrate key technologies.
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14 December 2010
NASA Names Waleed Abdalati As Agency's New Chief Scientist
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FOR FURTHER READING
20 December 2010
Rocket to nowhere
The new NASA authorization act directs the space agency to develop a massive heavy-lift launch vehicle in the next six years. Lou Friedman warns that without a specific mission and corresponding requirements for the vehicle, the project is destined to fail.
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20 December 2010
Space budgets are made to be broken
Last month NASA announced that the James Webb Space Telescope will require more money and more time before it will be ready to launch. Todd Neff notes that cost and schedule overruns are as old as the Space Age itself, a consequence of working on cutting-edge projects.
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20 December 2010
Securing space security
Orbital debris, satellite collisions, and ASAT tests have increased the awareness of the need of measures to preserve the safety of operations in Earth orbit. Jeff Foust reports on some potential and proposed measures the US and other countries can take in the near term to enhance space security.
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20 December 2010
Going somewhere Out There: revisiting Defying Gravity one last time
The TV series Defying Gravity went off the air after less than a season, leaving interested viewers wondering what would have happened next on this near future space exploration show. Dwayne Day discusses what the series creator had in store if the show had lived on.
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20 December 2010
Review: How I Killed Pluto
The controversy over the “demotion” of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet is now over four years old, but new viewpoints on the subject continue to emerge. Jeff Foust reviews a new book by the astronomer whose discoveries of icy worlds in the outer solar system triggered the eventual reclassification of the former ninth planet.
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13 December 2010
2010: the year commercial human spaceflight made contact
A year ago commercial crew transportation was treated skeptically, at best, in the space community; now it’s a part of national policy with the support of companies large and small. Jeff Foust reports on how last week’s successful flight of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft may help secure the long-term future for commercial human spaceflight.
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13 December 2010
The case for a human asteroid mission
Some still question the utility of mounting human missions to near Earth asteroids. Lou Friedman discusses not only why such missions are important, but also why the timetable for them should be accelerated.
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13 December 2010
The Pioneer lunar orbiters: a forgotten failure
Fifty years ago this week NASA wrapped up a largely unsuccessful series of missions to send a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon. Andrew LePage recalls the origins and unlucky fates of the Pioneer lunar orbiters.
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13 December 2010
Commercial space and the media
Last week’s successful Falcon 9/Dragon launch was certainly a major milestone for the space industry, but it got little attention in some sectors of the mainstream media. Anthony Young examines this state of affairs.
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13 December 2010
Review: Dream Walker
Some people read astronaut memoirs to learn more about life as an astronaut, while others may read them to provide insights to motivate them to achieve their own goals. Jeff Foust reviews one such book that is a better fit for those in the latter category.
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