Expedition 21 Crew Launches From Kazakhstan

Flight Engineers Jeffrey Williams and Maxim Suraev of the 21st International Space Station crew launched in their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:14 a.m. EDT Wednesday to begin a six-month stay in space.

Less than 10 minutes after launch their spacecraft reached orbit, and its antennas and solar arrays were deployed shortly afterward. With Williams, a retired U.S. Army colonel, and Suraev, a colonel in the Russian Air Force, is spaceflight participant Guy Laliberté, flying under an agreement between the Russian Federal Space Agency and Space Adventures, Ltd.

Laliberté will depart the station with Expedition 20 crew members Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Michael Barratt in their Soyuz TMA-14 on Oct. 10. Padalka and Barratt launched to the station on March 26.

The Expedition 21 crew members will be welcomed by the Expedition 20 crew, including Flight Engineers Nicole Stott, Roman Romanenko, Robert Thirsk and Frank De Winne, who will transition to the Expedition 21 crew with the departure of Padalka and Barratt. With the inauguration of Expedition 21, De Winne of the European Space Agency will become the first European commander of the orbiting complex.

Williams, 51, is making his third trip to the space station. His first flight was aboard space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-101 mission, which delivered and installed over 5,000 pounds of equipment and supplies to the station in May 2000. In 2006, Williams served a six-month tour of duty aboard the station as an Expedition 13 flight engineer and science officer. Williams has logged over 193 days in space, including over 19 hours in three spacewalks.

Suraev, 37, is making his first flight into space. He is a graduate of the Kachin Air Force Pilot School and the Zhukovski Air Force Academy and received a law degree from the Russian Academy of Civil Service. Qualified as a test-cosmonaut in November 1999, Suraev served as a backup crew member for Expeditions 17 and 19.

Messenger's Final Flyby Returns New Views of Mercury

On September 29, 2009, the MESSENGER spacecraft will pass by Mercury for the third time, flying 141.7 miles above the planet’s rocky surface for a final gravity assist that will enable it to enter orbit about Mercury in 2011. With more than 90 percent of the planet’s surface imaged, the team will turn its instruments on specific features and uncover more information about the planet closest to the Sun.

The first two flybys of Mercury revealed new, previously unseen terrain. During this encounter, the MESSENGER camera will again image the planet, including a small amount of never-before-seen surface, providing better resolution for some regions previously imaged. With this third flyby, instruments will also target interesting areas identified in the second flyby for more detailed spectral measurements as well. And depending upon the Sun, MESSENGER may get yet another unique snapshot of how the planet interacts with conditions in interplanetary space driven by the Sun’s behavior.

Cosmic Rays Hit Space Age High

Planning a trip to Mars? Take plenty of shielding. According to sensors on NASA's ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) spacecraft, galactic cosmic rays have just hit a Space Age high.

"In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we've seen in the past 50 years," says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. "The increase is significant, and it could mean we need to re-think how much radiation shielding astronauts take with them on deep-space missions."

The cause of the surge is solar minimum, a deep lull in solar activity that began around 2007 and continues today. Researchers have long known that cosmic rays go up when solar activity goes down. Right now solar activity is as weak as it has been in modern times, setting the stage for what Mewaldt calls "a perfect storm of cosmic rays."

"We're experiencing the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, "so it is no surprise that cosmic rays are at record levels for the Space Age."

Galactic cosmic rays come from outside the solar system. They are subatomic particles--mainly protons but also some heavy nuclei--accelerated to almost light speed by distant supernova explosions. Cosmic rays cause "air showers" of secondary particles when they hit Earth's atmosphere; they pose a health hazard to astronauts; and a single cosmic ray can disable a satellite if it hits an unlucky integrated circuit.

The sun's magnetic field is our first line of defense against these highly-charged, energetic particles. The entire solar system from Mercury to Pluto and beyond is surrounded by a bubble of solar magnetism called "the heliosphere." It springs from the sun's inner magnetic dynamo and is inflated to gargantuan proportions by the solar wind. When a cosmic ray tries to enter the solar system, it must fight through the heliosphere's outer layers; and if it makes it inside, there is a thicket of magnetic fields waiting to scatter and deflect the intruder.

Water found on moon

Three different space probes found the chemical signature of water all over the moon's surface, surprising the scientists who at first doubted the unexpected measurement until it was confirmed independently and repeatedly WATER particles have been detected on the surface of the Moon by three missions, including an Indian probe.

two other probes detected water
TWO other probes equipped with M3-type instruments also detected the chemical signature for the presence of water. These include data gathered by the American spacecraft Cassini as it passed near the moon a decade agon on its way to Saturn.

The evidence, disclosed in new scientific papers, overturns the long accepted view that lunar soil is dry and comes just two weeks before a Nasa probe is to crash into the surface near the Moon's southern pole to see if water can be detected in the dust and debris released by the impact.

The new data was gathered by probes equipped with Nasa instruments designed to map the Moon's mineral composition. The so-called 'Moon Mineralogy Mapper', or M3, uses the reflection of sunlight off the Moon's surface to determine soil composition.

In one of the three papers published in the latest edition of the journal Science, researchers said they analysed light waves detected by an M3 instrument on board an Indian satellite, Chandrayyan-1. The reflected light waves indicated a chemical bond between oxygen and hydrogen - proof, the researchers said, of the existence of water on the Moon's surface.

Professor Larry Taylor of the University of Tennessee, one of the study's co-authors, said the instrument is capable of detecting the composition of the thin upper layer of the Moon's surface only to a depth of two or three inches.

Until now, scientists had advanced the theory that there might be ice at the permamently dark bottom of craters at the Moon's poles but that the rest of the Moon was totally dry. Lunar rocks and soil contain about 45 per cent oxygen, but the source of the the hydrogen observed by the instruments on the three probes remains to be determined.

Prof Taylor and his colleagues believe it may have come from an astronomical phenomenon called the solar wind, which consist mainly of streams of positively charged hydrogen atoms emitted as the sun undergoes nuclear fusion. They estimate that each ton of lunar soil consists of 25 per cent water.

Radar Map of Buried Mars Layers Matches Climate Cycles

New, three-dimensional imaging of Martian north-polar ice layers by a radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is consistent with theoretical models of Martian climate swings during the past few million years.

Alignment of the layering patterns with the modeled climate cycles provides insight about how the layers accumulated. These ice-rich, layered deposits cover an area one-third larger than Texas and form a stack up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) thick atop a basal deposit with additional ice.

"Contrast in electrical properties between layers is what provides the reflectivity we observe with the radar," said Nathaniel Putzig of Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo., a member of the science team for the Shallow Radar instrument on the orbiter. "The pattern of reflectivity tells us about the pattern of material variations within the layers."

Earlier radar observations indicated that the Martian north-polar layered deposits are mostly ice. Radar contrasts between different layers in the deposits are interpreted as differences in the concentration of rock material, in the form of dust, mixed with the ice. These deposits on Mars hold about one-third as much water as Earth's Greenland ice sheet.

Putzig and nine co-authors report findings from 358 radar observations in a paper accepted for publication by the journal Icarus and currently available online.

Their radar results provide a cross-sectional view of the north-polar layered deposits of Mars, showing that high-reflectivity zones, with multiple contrasting layers, alternate with more-homogeneous zones of lower reflectivity. Patterns of how these two types of zones alternate can be correlated to models of how changes in Mars' tilt on its axis have produced changes in the planet's climate in the past 4 million years or so, but only if some possibilities for how the layers form are ruled out.

"We're not doing the climate modeling here; we are comparing others' modeling results to what we observe with the radar, and using that comparison to constrain the possible explanations for how the layers form," Putzig said.

The most recent 300,000 years of Martian history are a period of less dramatic swings in the planet's tilt than during the preceding 600,000 years. Since the top zone of the north-polar layered deposits -- the most recently deposited portion -- is strongly radar-reflective, the researchers propose that such sections of high-contrast layering correspond to periods of relatively small swings in the planet's tilt.

Radar Map of Buried Mars Layers Matches Climate Cycles

Three-dimensional imaging of Martian north-polar ice layers by a radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is consistent with theoretical models of Martian climate swings during the past few million years.

Alignment of the layering patterns with the modeled climate cycles provides insight about how the layers accumulated. These ice-rich, layered deposits cover an area one-third larger than Texas and form a stack up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) thick atop a basal deposit with additional ice.

"Contrast in electrical properties between layers is what provides the reflectivity we observe with the radar," said Nathaniel Putzig of Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo., a member of the science team for the Shallow Radar instrument on the orbiter. "The pattern of reflectivity tells us about the pattern of material variations within the layers."

Earlier radar observations indicated that the Martian north-polar layered deposits are mostly ice. Radar contrasts between different layers in the deposits are interpreted as differences in the concentration of rock material, in the form of dust, mixed with the ice. These deposits on Mars hold about one-third as much water as Earth's Greenland ice sheet.

Putzig and nine co-authors report findings from 358 radar observations in a paper accepted for publication by the journal Icarus and currently available online.

Their radar results provide a cross-sectional view of the north-polar layered deposits of Mars, showing that high-reflectivity zones, with multiple contrasting layers, alternate with more-homogenous zones of lower reflectivity. Patterns of how these two types of zones alternate can be correlated to models of how changes in Mars' tilt on its axis have produced changes in the planet's climate in the past 4 million years or so, but only if some possibilities for how the layers form are ruled out.

"We're not doing the climate modeling here; we are comparing others' modeling results to what we observe with the radar, and using that comparison to constrain the possible explanations for how the layers form," Putzig said.

The most recent 300,000 years of Martian history are a period of less dramatic swings in the planet's tilt than during the preceding 600,000 years. Since the top zone of the north-polar layered deposits -- the most recently deposited portion -- is strongly radar-reflective, the researchers propose that such sections of high-contrast layering correspond to periods of relatively small swings in the planet's tilt.

They also propose a mechanism for how those contrasting layers would form. The observed pattern does not fit well with an earlier interpretation that the dustier layers in those zones are formed during high-tilt periods when sunshine on the polar region sublimates some of the top layer's ice and concentrates the dust left behind. Rather, it fits an alternative interpretation that the dustier layers are simply deposited during periods when the atmosphere is dustier.

The new radar mapping of the extent and depth of five stacked units in the north-polar layered deposits reveals that the geographical center of ice deposition probably shifted by 400 kilometers (250 miles) or more at least once during the past few million years.

"The radar has been giving us spectacular results," said Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a co-author of the paper. "We have mapped continuous underground layers in three dimensions across a vast area."

The Rite of Spring

Of the countless equinoxes Saturn has seen since the birth of the solar system, this one, captured here in a mosaic of light and dark, is the first witnessed up close by an emissary from Earth ... none other than our faithful robotic explorer, Cassini.

Seen from our planet, the view of Saturn's rings during equinox is extremely foreshortened and limited. But in orbit around Saturn, Cassini had no such problems. From 20 degrees above the ring plane, Cassini's wide angle camera shot 75 exposures in succession for this mosaic showing Saturn, its rings, and a few of its moons a day and a half after exact Saturn equinox, when the sun's disk was exactly overhead at the planet's equator.

The novel illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun's angle to the ring plane, significantly darkens the rings, and causes out-of-plane structures to look anomalously bright and to cast shadows across the rings. These scenes are possible only during the few months before and after Saturn's equinox which occurs only once in about 15 Earth years. Before and after equinox, Cassini's cameras have spotted not only the predictable shadows of some of Saturn's moons (see PIA11657), but also the shadows of newly revealed vertical structures in the rings themselves (see PIA11665).

Also at equinox, the shadows of the planet's expansive rings are compressed into a single, narrow band cast onto the planet as seen in this mosaic. (For an earlier view of the rings' wide shadows draped high on the northern hemisphere, see PIA09793.)

The images comprising the mosaic, taken over about eight hours, were extensively processed before being joined together. First, each was re-projected into the same viewing geometry and then digitally processed to make the image "joints" seamless and to remove lens flares, radially extended bright artifacts resulting from light being scattered within the camera optics.

At this time so close to equinox, illumination of the rings by sunlight reflected off the planet vastly dominates any meager sunlight falling on the rings. Hence, the half of the rings on the left illuminated by planetshine is, before processing, much brighter than the half of the rings on the right. On the right, it is only the vertically extended parts of the rings that catch any substantial sunlight.

Wind Tunnel's Swan Song

A historic wind tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., has been pressed into service one last time to help test the prototype of a new, more fuel-efficient, quieter aircraft design. Boeing Research & Technology, Huntington Beach, Calif., recently partnered with NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, to explore and validate the structural, aerodynamic and operational advantages of an advanced concept called the blended wing body or BWB.

"We have one version of the 21-foot (6.4 m) wingspan BWB prototype, called the X-48B, being flight tested at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, in Edwards, Calif.," said Dan Vicroy, senior research engineer at NASA Langley. "The other one we just tested in the Langley Full-Scale Tunnel is the X-48C. It's been modified to make it even quieter. We're assessing the aerodynamic effects of those modifications." Those changes include reducing the number of engines from three to two and the installation of vertical fins to shield the engine noise.

Cranfield Aerospace Ltd. in England built both ground-breaking aircraft scale models to Boeing's specifications. Made primarily of advanced lightweight composite materials, the models weigh about 500 pounds (227 kg) each. They are powered by turbojet engines and can fly up to 138 miles per hour (222 kph) and 10,000 feet (3,048 m) in altitude during flight-testing. The Air Force is interested in the plane's potential as a multi-role, long-range, high-capacity military aircraft.

In 2006, preliminary tests helped engineers determine how the X-48B would perform during remotely piloted flight tests. Blended wing body designs are different from traditional tube-and-wing aircraft in that the tube and wings are blended for lower drag and better lift, and they rely primarily on multiple control surfaces on the wing for stability and control.

"It was actually a big thrill for me to be back at the Langley Full-Scale Tunnel," said Dharmendra Patel, project manager for the X-48C at Boeing Research & Technology. "I think it's a big privilege that we were the last test here, that we get to be part of the history of the tunnel. But it is a little bittersweet that the facility will be closed down."

Langley decommissioned the tunnel in 1995, and then leased it to Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., for research and student engineering training. That lease was up this summer and the tunnel is scheduled for demolition because of its lack of national strategic importance, limited testing capability, deteriorating condition and the environmental liability associated with the materials used in its construction.

Detailed Mapping of Moon's South Pole

LRO has successfully completed its testing and calibration phase and entered its mapping orbit of the moon.

NASA reported Thursday that its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has successfully completed its testing and calibration phase and entered its mapping orbit of the moon. The spacecraft already has made significant progress toward creating the most detailed atlas of the moon’s south pole to date. Scientists released preliminary images and data from LRO’s seven instruments.

“The LRO mission already has begun to give us new data that will lead to a vastly improved atlas of the lunar south pole and advance our capability for human exploration and scientific benefit,” said Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

LRO is scheduled for a one-year exploration mission in a polar orbit of about 31 miles above the lunar surface, the closest any spacecraft has orbited the moon. During the next year, LRO will produce a complete map of the lunar surface in unprecedented detail, search for resources and safe landing sites for human explorers, and measure lunar temperatures and radiation levels.

“The LRO instruments, spacecraft, and ground systems continue to operate essentially flawlessly,” said Craig Tooley, LRO project manager at Goddard “The team completed the planned commissioning and calibration activities on time and also got a significant head start collecting data even before we moved to the mission’s mapping orbit.”

The south pole of the moon is of great interest to explorers because potential resources such as water ice or hydrogen may exist there. Permanently shadowed polar craters that are bitterly cold at their bottoms may hold deposits of water ice or hydrogen from comet impacts or the solar wind. The deposits may have accumulated in these “cold-trap” regions over billions of years. If enough of these resources exist to make mining practical, future long-term human missions to the moon potentially could save the considerable expense of hauling water from Earth.

First results from LRO’s Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector, or LEND, indicate that permanently shadowed and nearby regions may harbor water and hydrogen. Additional observations will be needed to confirm this. LEND relies on a decr

Moon's South Pole

GREENBELT, Md. -- NASA reported Thursday that its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has successfully completed its testing and calibration phase and entered its mapping orbit of the moon. The spacecraft already has made significant progress toward creating the most detailed atlas of the moon's south pole to date. Scientists released preliminary images and data from LRO's seven instruments.

"The LRO mission already has begun to give us new data that will lead to a vastly improved atlas of the lunar south pole and advance our capability for human exploration and scientific benefit," said Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

LRO is scheduled for a one-year exploration mission in a polar orbit of about 31 miles above the lunar surface, the closest any spacecraft has orbited the moon. During the next year, LRO will produce a complete map of the lunar surface in unprecedented detail, search for resources and safe landing sites for human explorers, and measure lunar temperatures and radiation levels.

"The LRO instruments, spacecraft, and ground systems continue to operate essentially flawlessly," said Craig Tooley, LRO project manager at Goddard "The team completed the planned commissioning and calibration activities on time and also got a significant head start collecting data even before we moved to the mission's mapping orbit."

The south pole of the moon is of great interest to explorers because potential resources such as water ice or hydrogen may exist there. Permanently shadowed polar craters that are bitterly cold at their bottoms may hold deposits of water ice or hydrogen from comet impacts or the solar wind.

The deposits may have accumulated in these "cold-trap" regions over billions of years. If enough of these resources exist to make mining practical, future long-term human missions to the moon potentially could save the considerable expense of hauling water from Earth.

Progress of 2009 Antarctic Ozone Hole

The annual ozone hole has started developing over the South Pole, and it appears that it will be comparable to ozone depletions over the past decade. This composite image from September 10 depicts ozone concentrations in Dobson units, with purple and blues depicting severe deficits of ozone.

"We have observed the ozone hole again in 2009, and it appears to be pretty average so far," said ozone researcher Paul Newman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "However, we won't know for another four weeks how this year's ozone hole will fully develop."

Scientists are tracking the size and depth of the ozone hole with observations from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura spacecraft, the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment on the European Space Agency's ERS-2 spacecraft, and the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet instrument on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NOAA-16 satellite.

The depth and area of the ozone hole are governed by the amount of chlorine and bromine in the Antarctic stratosphere. Over the southern winter, polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) form in the extreme cold of the atmosphere, and chlorine gases react on the cloud particles to release chlorine into a form that can easily destroy ozone. When the sun rises in August after months of seasonal polar darkness, the sunlight heats the clouds and catalyzes the chemical reactions that deplete the ozone layer. The ozone hole begins to grow in August and reaches its largest area in late September to early October.

Recent observations and several studies have shown that the size of the annual ozone hole has stabilized and the level of ozone-depleting substances has decreased by 4 percent since 2001. But since chlorine and bromine compounds have long lifetimes in the atmosphere, a recovery of atmospheric ozone is not likely to be noticeable until 2020 or later.

space shuttle.

Fifty years ago in 1959, test pilot Scott Crossfield threw the switch to ignite the twin XLR-11 engines of his North American Aviation X-15 rocket plane and begin the storied test program's first powered flight.

It was a real kick in the pants.

"The drop from the B-52 carrier aircraft was pretty abrupt, and then when you lit that rocket a second or two later you definitely felt it,” said Joe Engle, another X-15 test pilot and member of the same exclusive fraternity of flyboys that included Crossfield and the eventual first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. All took the X-15 to speeds and altitudes that extended the frontiers of flight.

The X-15 was a research scientist's dream. The experimental, rocket-boosted aircraft flew 199 flights with 12 different pilots at the controls from 1959 through 1968. It captured vital data on the effects of hypersonic flight on man and machine that proved invaluable to the nation's aeronautics researchers, including NASA and developers of the space shuttle.

"That first powered flight was a real milestone in a program that we still benefit from today," said Engle. Engle knows what he’s talking about. The Kansas native flew the X-15 for the U.S. Air Force 16 times from 1963 to 1965 and went on to command two missions of NASA's space shuttle.

Still an active pilot, the retired major general fondly recalled what it was like to fly the X-15 and how lessons learned then made possible the space shuttle program years later.

"It was a very busy airplane to fly, but it also was a beautiful airplane to fly; a very, very good solid flying vehicle. Particularly when you were subsonic, in the landing pattern— even at the lower supersonic speeds," Engle said.

Joe Engle standing in front of the X-15.Joe Engle during the X-15 program, which ran from 1959 through 1968. Three times Engle flew an X-15 higher than 50 miles, officially qualifying him for Air Force astronaut wings and providing him a brief moment for sightseeing at the edge of space.

"I didn't really have time to soak up the view in the X-15 like I did later when I flew the space shuttle," Engle said.

Habitable moons 'could to be spotted by 2014

British astronomers have claimed that thousands of moons capable of supporting life, like those shown in the popular Star Wars' flicks, could be scattered all over our galaxy, and are likely to be spotted by 2014.

A team at University College London hopes to track the habitable moons within the next five years, using a telescope launched by US space agency Nasa earlier this year to hunt out other planets.

According to lead astronomer Dr David Kipping, there are more than 12,500 stars within sight of Nasa's Kepler Space Telescope that have the potential for moons orbiting in areas of space where conditions could be favourable to life.

In fact, they have devised a new method for detecting moons in other solar systems -- known as exomoons

Expt to trace ice on moon fails due to loss of Chandrayaan-I

An experiment to look for ice in the polar region of the moon has failed with the abrupt loss of India's maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-I, a scientist associated with the project has said.

A well-coordinated cosmic dance of two mooncraft Chandrayaan-I and NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was conducted late last month to study the polar craters of the moon which, scientists believe, could be the storehouse of water.

"Everything worked out as best as could be hoped, except for one thing. It turned out Chandrayaan-I was not pointed at the moon when we were taking the data, but we didn't know that at the time," said Paul Spudis, principal investigator for Chandrayaan-I radar instrument, Mini-SAR.

The experiment was attempted on 20th August when both spacecraft were only 20 kilometres apart over Erlanger Crater near the moon's north pole.

A radar on board Chandrayaan-I was to transmit a signal to be bounced off from the interior the crater and picked up by LRO.

But, Chandrayaan-I was pointed in the wrong direction and scientists had no way of knowing it, Spudis told 'Universe Today' website.

Scientists were planning to compare the signal picked up by the LRO with the one picked up by Chandrayaan-I.

The study of the two signals would have provided them with unique information about ice on the polar crater.

Discovery Shuttle undocks from station & heads home

Seven astronauts aboard the U.S. shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station on Tuesday and set their sights on a Thursday landing in Florida. Shuttle pilot Kevin Ford backed the craft away from the station as it orbited 223 miles above western China, near the Mongolian border.

Later, Ford backflipped the shuttle around the station so astronauts aboard the outpost could take pictures of Discovery's heat shield. Discovery's crew will spend the rest of the day on inspections that are part of post-Columbia safety procedures to assure the shuttle was not damaged by debris during its climb to orbit.

In 2003, Columbia was hit by a suitcase-size chunk of foam that fell off its fuel tank during liftoff. The shuttle broke apart, killing the seven astronauts aboard, as it flew through the atmosphere for landing. So far, NASA has found no damage that would keep Discovery from its scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 10 at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT).

During its nearly 9-day stay, Discovery delivered more than 7 tons of food, supplies, equipment and spare parts to the $100 billion orbital outpost, a project of 16 nations that is nearing completion after more than a decade of construction.

Deliveries included science experiments, crew sleeping quarters, and a $5 million treadmill named after Comedy Central television host Stephen Colbert, who won naming rights to the station's final module after fans swarmed a NASA publicity campaign.

During three spacewalks, astronauts laid power cables that will be used to connect the outpost's last connecting node - named Tranquility -- to the station when it arrives in February. They also replaced a tank full of ammonia used to cool the station, installed an external cargo platform, and repaired a gyroscope used to steer the station.

NASA hopes to complete the station by the end of next year after six more shuttle flights. Construction began in December 1998. The station now weighs about 327 tons and is 84 percent complete

reason for mission failure revealed

The common man will finally have his piece of moon and also a first hand account of what the Rs 386 crore unmanned moon mission Chandrayaan-1 achieved during its 312-day lunar odyssey. For the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has plans to make public entire data collected from the mission by end of the year.

S K Shivkumar, Director, ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network, told Express on Wednesday that all the scientific data beamed from the Chandrayaan-1 will be put up in the public domain
by end of this year or early next year. “During the two-day peer committee review meeting held in the city and attended by Scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency it was decided that the data obtained from the mission will be converted to standard planetary data system format (an international standard) using software and uploaded on the internet once the lock-in period of the data expires,’’ said Shivkumar.

The lock-in period, that is the time for which data will be treated as classified information by scientists directly involved in the project, is set to be over within a year from time of collection of the data (which commenced as early as November last year). ISRO has planned to convert all the data with the help of a “software” and throw it open to the public after the lock-in period expires. The space agency is already in the process of procuring the conversion software.

“Countries which had their scientific instruments (payloads) onboard the Chandrayaan I spacecraft will have the first right to access the data collected their respective instruments. However, in the review meeting, scientists have come to a consensus that the data will be shared among each other,” said Shivkumar.

The space agency will host the data for over 15 to 20 years which is expected to arouse keen interest among young scientists.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. -- During analysis of four safe-mode events this year, engineers for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project have identified a vulnerability to the effects of subsequent events. They are currently developing added protection to eliminate this vulnerability while they continue analysis of the string of incidents this year in which the spacecraft has spontaneously rebooted its computer or switched to a backup computer.

The team is keeping the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in a precautionary "safe" mode, with healthy power, temperatures and communications, while continuing analysis and precautions subsequent to the latest rebooting, on Aug. 26. Science observations will likely not resume for several weeks while this preventive care is the mission's priority.

The analysis identified one possible but unlikely scenario jeopardizing the spacecraft. This scenario would require two computer resets, each worse than any so far, occurring within several minutes of each other in a certain pattern.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, has met the mission's science goals and returned more data than all other Mars missions combined. It completed its primary science phase of operations in November 2008 but remains an important contributor to science and to future landed missions. Continuing science observations are planned when the spacecraft is brought out of its current precautionary mode.

ISRO Plan To Launch Satellites To Facilitate Rural India

Something from the outer space, International Space Station and Discovery shuttle will soon get back from space after they accomplish their new mission. And, this time they’re out there to collect a ton of space station junk, surplus gear and completed science experiment apparatus.
On the other side India’s maiden moon mission Chandrayaan I is still collecting data and analysis about what went wrong. Apparently its going to take another couple of years, may be. ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said, “We had anticipated some problems at the beginning and wanted to complete important experiments much earlier. About 95% of data collection has been completed and analysis will take another six months to two years.”

After ISRO’s launch of Bhuvan, India’s version of Google Earth there has been hardly any progress from their end. Recently ISRO announced that they’ll design a satellite for villages to get connectivity. More than about 50,000 villages out of the 60,000 in India will be connected after the launch of this satellite. There have been many instances where companies are looking to target rural India, be it mobile players, internet service providers and so on. Including the Union Budget 09-10, it seems everyone coming up with something new face to a huge question, ‘What about Rural India?’ It certainly poses one of the greatest opportunities for penetration, and I wouldn’t be surprised if soon get to read an article – Rural India, Mother of all opportunities!

This time to assess agricultural conditions and weather effectively to help people on the ground in co-ordination with other government agencies, ISRO also plan to build two satellites for environment monitoring. One of the sattelites would study aerosols and other related things. while the second one would trace gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and sulphur dioxide, among others. They would be built at the Bangalore-headquartered ISRO while on the other hand they’re also looking to take man to circumnavigate the earth by 2015!

Data From Newest Ocean Satellite Ready for Their 'Close-up'

Following a year of calibration and validation by an international team of scientists, fully-validated, research-quality sea surface height data from the NASA/French Space Agency Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 satellite are now available to the public. These “geophysical data record” products, as they are known, will be used primarily by climate researchers for climate monitoring and modeling.

These data are the most accurate of the three global OSTM/Jason-2 data products available to users worldwide. They are available within 60 days of being recorded, and are distributed jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales.

Launched June 20, 2008, OSTM/Jason-2 is extending the climate data record begun by the NASA/French Space Agency Topex/Poseidon satellite and continued by the NASA/French Space Agency Jason-1 satellite, providing a long-term survey of Earth’s ocean. It measures changes in the height of the sea surface.

These are used to understand shifts in ocean currents as well as sea level rise—both critical parts of global climate change. The data are used around the world to improve weather, climate and ocean forecasts.

News Conference, Spacewalk Preparations for Crews

After a morning off, the STS-128 astronauts will join their International Space Station counterparts for work in the afternoon, continuing with supply transfers and preparing for the third spacewalk.

All 13 shuttle and station crew members will gather for a midday meal, crew photo and news conference. At 8:54 p.m. EDT, they will convene in the station to take questions from media in the United States, Canada and Sweden.

The crew resumes transfer work for the rest of the day. Flight controllers report the planned transfer of supplies is more than 60 percent complete. The crew also will prepare the spacesuits and airlock for the third and final excursion of the mission slated for Saturday.

pacewalk for STS-128 Crew

Expedition 20 flight engineer Nicole Stott participates in the STS-128 mission's first spacewalk as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk, Stott and astronaut Danny Olivas (out of frame) removed an empty ammonia tank from the station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the station's robotic arm. Olivas and Stott also retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility and Materials International Space Station Experiment from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery's payload bay for return.

Two astronauts are conducting the second of three planned spacewalks during this mission. Mission specialists Danny Olivas and Christer Fuglesang will install a new ammonia tank on the International Space Station and stow a depleted tank for return to Earth.

Olivas and Fuglesang spent the night in the Quest airlock in preparation for the excursion. Mission Specialist Patrick Forrester is serving as the intravehicular officer throughout the 6.5-hour spacewalk, which began at 6:12 p.m. EDT.

The spacewalk activity begins in Discovery’s payload bay where the two spacewalkers will remove the new ammonia tank. They will take a thermal blanket off of the tank and loosen four bolts holding the tank to a cargo carrier. Fuglesang, positioned at the end of the station robotic arm, will hand carry the tank to the truss. Pilot Kevin Ford and Expedition 20 Flight Engineer Nicole Stott will operate the arm for the 30-minute maneuver and other arm operations.

Shuttle and Station Crews Working Together

The 13 members of the combined space shuttle and International Space Station crew will install
new science equipment and racks in the station Wednesday, enhancing the research capabilities for the orbiting laboratory.

The Fluids Integrated Rack, Materials Science Research Rack-1 and Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS will be installed in the U.S. Destiny laboratory. The crews also will work on installation and outfitting of the new crew quarters compartment and the ongoing transfer of food and supplies from the Leonardo module.

STS-128 mission specialists Danny Olivas and Christer Fuglesang will prepare for their spacewalk tomorrow. They will get their spacesuits in place in the Quest airlock, gather tools and join the U.S. crew members to review the spacewalk plan.

For the latest news and information on the STS-128 mission, visit the main shuttle page.

Shuttle Discovery arrives at space station

Space shuttle Discovery has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS), on Sunday ending a round-the-world chase of nearly two days. The final approach and docking ended up being slightly more challenging for Discovery's commander, Rick Sturckow.

He had to use the shuttle's big primary thrusters for all the maneuvering instead of the small fine-tuning thrusters because of a breakdown in one of the little jets.
He is the first to approach the station that way.

Discovery and its crew of seven are delivering thousands of pounds of science experiments and equipment, including a treadmill named for Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert.

The shuttle will remain at the station until next week.