Source:11 February 2015 An experimental vehicle to develop an autonomous European reentry capability for future reusable space transportation has completed its mission. ESA’s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle flew a flawless reentry and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean just west of the Galapagos islands.
Nice animation Borg!
T minus 00:14:00 and counting for Space X launch:
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WAAAHOOO! What a launch! Loved the first stage and the fairings falling away, the onboard shots!
I'm still watching full screen.........!
On the way to Lagrange Point 1! : WMAP Observatory: Lagrange Points
NASA shows off moon phases from the far side
Growing up we always called the far side of the moon the dark side of the moon. We had this mental image of that side of the moon being perpetually in the dark, but that isn’t true. The sun shines its light on the far side of the moon as well, but we don’t ever get to see that side of the moon from Earth. NASA has some very cool moon phases and libration videos that show the moon from the view we have here on Earth.
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A Guy
Curiosity Mars rover takes its most impressive selfie yet
Curiosity continues to be one of the most successful robotic missions in the history of space exploration, but it’s not all work for this Mars rover. Sometimes it likes to have a little fun up there and take some selfies. The latest Curiosity selfie was taken at the “Mojave” site at the base of Mount Sharp, and it’s an amazing view.
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A Guy
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nasa's dawn spacecraft has become the first mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet. The spacecraft was approximately 38,000 miles (61,000) kilometers from ceres when it was captured by the dwarf planet’s gravity at about 4:39 a.m. Pst (7:39 a.m. Est) friday.
Mission controllers at nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory (jpl) in pasadena, california received a signal from the spacecraft at 5:36 a.m. Pst (8:36 a.m. Est) that dawn was healthy and thrusting with its ion engine, the indicator dawn had entered orbit as planned.
"since its discovery in 1801, ceres was known as a planet, then an asteroid and later a dwarf planet," said marc rayman, dawn chief engineer and mission director at jpl. "now, after a journey of 3.1 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) and 7.5 years, dawn calls ceres, home."
in addition to being the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet, dawn also has the distinction of being the first mission to orbit two extraterrestrial targets. From 2011 to 2012, the spacecraft explored the giant asteroid vesta, delivering new insights and thousands of images from that distant world. Ceres and vesta are the two most massive residents of our solar system’s main asteroid belt between mars and jupiter.
The most recent images received from the spacecraft, taken on march 1 show ceres as a crescent, mostly in shadow because the spacecraft's trajectory put it on a side of ceres that faces away from the sun until mid-april. When dawn emerges from ceres' dark side, it will deliver ever-sharper images as it spirals to lower orbits around the planet.
"we feel exhilarated," said chris russell, principal investigator of the dawn mission at the university of california, los angeles (ucla). "we have much to do over the next year and a half, but we are now on station with ample reserves, and a robust plan to obtain our science objectives."
dawn's mission is managed by jpl for nasa's science mission directorate in washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's discovery program, managed by nasa's marshall space flight center in huntsville, alabama. Ucla is responsible for overall dawn mission science. Orbital atk inc., in dulles, virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The german aerospace center, max planck institute for solar system research, italian space agency and italian national astrophysical institute are international partners on the mission team.
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Thanks for the update John.
I received a NASA info pac on the reconnection, its gonna take the probe a few days to reach and immerse itself into the connection point, but it should be glorious from there-on.
Just imagine if you could apply the power released from a reconnection to any or all of the propulsion/energy unit(s) in use today.
Goodby to these forms of power:
Wind
Water
Solar
Batteries
Fossil fuels
Waves
Nuclear
More: The corrugated galaxy: Milky Way may be much larger than previously estimatedThe corrugated galaxy: Milky Way may be much larger than previously estimated
The Milky Way galaxy is at least 50 percent larger than is commonly estimated, according to new findings that reveal that the galactic disk is contoured into several concentric ripples. The research, conducted by an international team led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Heidi Jo Newberg, revisits astronomical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey which, in 2002, established the presence of a bulging ring of stars beyond the known plane of the Milky Way.
"In essence, what we found is that the disk of the Milky Way isn't just a disk of stars in a flat plane—it's corrugated," said Heidi Newberg, professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy in the Rensselaer School of Science. "As it radiates outward from the sun, we see at least four ripples in the disk of the Milky Way. While we can only look at part of the galaxy with this data, we assume that this pattern is going to be found throughout the disk."
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