25 August 2012
One small headline in the news but a giant loss for mankind - US astronaut Neil Armstrong dies
US astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon, has died at the age of 82. His family says he died from complications from heart surgery he had earlier this month. In a statement, his family praised him as a "reluctant American hero" who had "served his nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut".
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24 August 2012
Sarah Brightman In Talks Over Space Trip
British singer Sarah Brightman is in talks with the space tourism firm Space Adventures to become the world's eighth space tourist, a senior Russian space official said on Wednesday. "I think that if we do come to a consensus, then theoretically it can happen," Alexei Krasnov, head of manned space missions at the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said.
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24 August 2012
XCOR To Build, Fly Suborbital Ships in Florida
The Aug. 23 announcement at KSC’s Visitor Complex is the second expansion plan unveiled by XCOR in as many months. The privately held firm, currently based in Mojave, Calif., will relocate its headquarters and set up a research and development center in Midland, Texas, leaving only an operations center, and possibly some flight test activities, in Mojave.
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24 August 2012
SpaceX Cleared To Start Station Resupply Flights
NASA has formally cleared Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) to begin making cargo runs to the international space station in October, making the Hawthorne, Calif., company the first private-spacecraft owner-operator to serve the orbital outpost.
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24 August 2012
Russia to Build New Space Plant
A space satellite manufacturing plant will be built in the town of Shchyolkovo, just outside the Russian capital, Moscow Region Governor Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday.
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23 August 2012
DLR Chief: French-German Study Favors Ariane 5 Upgrade over Ariane 6
A six-month joint French-German government study of future launch vehicle and space station investment options has reinforced the German space agency’s preference for an upgraded Ariane 5 rocket instead of a new-generation Ariane 6, and cooperation with the United States on a U.S.-led crew vehicle instead of a European-led alternative, the agency’s chief said Aug. 21.
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23 August 2012
NASA selects DLR experiment for InSight mission to Mars
The InSight mission has been designed to take a 'look' into the deep interior of the Red Planet; it will do this with geophysical experiments including DLR's HP3, which will penetrate several metres into the Martian subsurface to measure the soil's thermo-physical and electrical properties.
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related
A UK Space Agency-funded instrument will fly on NASA's InSight
The UK-funded SEIS-SP instrument, designed to investigate the interior structure and processes of Mars, has been selected to travel to the Red Planet on NASA's newly announced InSight mission. It is a Seismometer that will listen for "marsquakes" and use this information to map the boundaries between the rock layers inside Earth's neighbour.
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23 August 2012
First Earthrise Photo Taken 46 Years Ago Today
46 Years ago today, on 23 August 1966, Lunar Orbiter 1 snapped the first photo of Earth as seen from lunar orbit. While a remarkable image at the time, the full resolution of the image was never retrieved from the data stored from the mission.
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22 August 2012
After intial failure - space station orbit successfully adjusted
The successful orbital readjustment follows a failed attempt Aug. 15 when the ATV-3's engines shut down prematurely because of an increase in temperature on one of the units, leaving the ISS short of its intended orbital height.
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22 August 2012
NASA Picks Revolutionary Space Tech Proposals For Development
NASA's Space Technology Program has selected five technologies that could revolutionize America's space capabilities:
"Representing and Exploiting Cumulative Experience with Objects for Autonomous Manipulation,"
"Lightweight High Performance Acoustic Suppression Technology Development,"
"Fast Light Optical Gyroscopes for Precision Inertial Navigation,"
"EHD-Based Variable Conductance Thermal Interface Material,"
"Membrane Enabled Reverse Lung,"
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20 August 2012
NASA Picks Mars Lander as Next Discovery Mission
A small lander, bubbed InSight, that will study the geological composition of Mars beat out a comet-hopping probe and a vessel designed to sail the hydrocarbon seas of Saturn’s moon Titan to become NASA’s 12th Discovery-class mission, the space agency announced Aug. 20.
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17 August 2012
How a Mars Sample Return Mission Can Go Electric
A round trip to the Red Planet could become cheaper by using electric propulsion. "The chances of having a reliable technology available for MSR in the timeframe beyond 2020 appear good," said Wolfgang Seboldt, a physicist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
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17 August 2012
LRO Spectrometer Detects Helium in Moon's Atmosphere
"The question now becomes, does the helium originate from inside the Moon, for example, due to radioactive decay in rocks, or from an exterior source, such as the solar wind?" says Dr. Alan Stern, Lyman Alpha Mapping Project principal investigator and associate vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute.
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17 August 2012
NASA May Lose a Second Key Backer with Nelson Facing Tough Race
NASA will be missing one of its top congressional supporters next year with the retirement of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), and another, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), is in a struggle to keep his seat, Space Policy Online reports.
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17 August 2012
Medvedev Sets September Deadline for Roscosmos Overhaul
The Russian government has given Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, until mid-September to propose ways to improve quality control in Russia’s space industry, particularly its launcher sector, in the wake of the Aug. 6 failure of a Proton rocket carrying two telecommunications satellites.
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14 August 2012
Griffin Takes Chief Executive Job at Schafer Corp.
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13 August 2012
Congress Mulls Over Space Agency Reboot
According to the Houston Chronicle, Reps. John Culberson (R-Texas) and Frank Wolf (R-Va.), both members of the House Appropriations Committee, have begun working on legislation that would make NASA less susceptible to the vagaries of presidential politics that have created a pattern of wasteful starts and stops on big programs over the years.
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13 August 2012
Obama to NASA experts: 'Let me know if you find Martians'
US President Barack Obama on Monday ribbed scientists behind NASA's roving robot Curiosity, instructing them to let him know right away if they found life on Mars.
"If in fact, you do make contact with Martians, please let me know right away," Obama joked, as he called the scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California from Air Force One. "I've got a lot of other things on my plate, but I suspect that that will go to the top of the list. Even if they're just microbes, it will be pretty exciting."
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13 August 2012
New Way of Turning Station Offers Fuel Savings on Orbit
The launch of the 48th Progress resupply vehicle to the International Space Station marked two technical firsts for station operations: it was the first same-day rendezvous and docking of a spacecraft to the station, and it was the first use of a new fuel-efficient way of orienting the station for that docking. While the two firsts did not depend upon one another, they did occur during the same Russian cargo resupply mission to the station.
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FOR FURTHER READING
20 August 2012
Darkness ascending
Recent declassifications by the NRO have shed new light on a number of early reconnaissance satellite programs. However, as Dwayne Day explains, there’s still a lot to learn about some programs form that era that remain under wraps.
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20 August 2012
Dwarf planet, dwarf controversy
Six years ago this month, the IAU approved a definition of the term “planet” that excluded Pluto, much to the dismay of many scientists and space enthusiasts. Jeff Foust reports that, today, there’s still a debate about how a planet should be defined, although it doesn’t weigh heavily among even those closely involved in that debate.
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20 August 2012
India announces a mission to Mars
Earlier this month the Indian government confirmed plans for that nation’s space agency to send a spacecraft to Mars next November. Ajey Lele examines India’s Mars mission plans and whether it makes sense for the country to cooperate with its regional space rivals on such a mission.
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20 August 2012
Review: Becoming Spacefarers
The last two and a half years have seen an ongoing debate about the future of NASA and civil space policy in the US. Jeff Foust reviews a book that argues that an even greater change in America’s approach to space exploration than what the Obama Administration proposed is necessary.
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13 August 2012
After Apollo: Creating an economically robust space policy by learning from the American West
As the memories of Apollo, and its impact on US space policy, fade, what approach should replace it? Martin Elvis says that the new US approach to space should be like what it did in the American West in the 19th century: make the frontier safe for capitalism.
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13 August 2012
A curious future for Mars exploration
Now that the Mars rover Curiosity is safely on Mars, what’s next for NASA’s exploration of the Red Planet? Jeff Foust reports that future plans, including an eventual Mars sample return mission, are still in flux, but could be affected by the success of Curiosity.
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13 August 2012
Red Planet redux
The team that helped successfully land Curiosity on the surface of Mars included many college interns. Rex Ridenoure recalls his experience as an intern on another NASA Mars mission, Viking.
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13 August 2012
Review: US Presidents and the Militarization of Space
The US and other nations’ militaries actively use space, but they don’t station weapons or directly fight there, unlike the land, sea, and air. Jeff Foust reviews a book that argues that a deliberate series of policy decisions by several US administrations, some predating Sputnik, helped create this environment.
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