Dream Chaser, the crewed orbital and suborbital vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing lifting-body vehicle, has been delivered to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California as of May 15. The vehicle, being developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Space Systems, will undergo a series of tests on its flight and runway landing system. “This will be the first full scale flight test [...]
Post Tagged with: “NASA”
Kepler Telescope in Safe Mode After Reaction Wheel Failure
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has once again entered safe mode, most likely due to an attitude error. The spacecraft, during a scheduled semi-weekly contact, was found oriented with the solar panels facing the sun, slowly spinning in the Sun’s direction. The spin made it difficult to communicate with the space telescope. “This is something that we’ve been expecting for a [...]
Expedition 35 Crew Comes Back to Earth after 5 Months
Expedition 35, composed of Canadian Chris Hadfield, American Tom Marshburn, and Russian Roman Romanenko, has safely touched ground in Kazakhstan as of 2:31 GMT, on May 14 after 146 days in orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS). “For me this was just a personification of what the International Space Station is, and what the people mean to it,” said [...]
The Fateful Launch of Skylab
By Ben Evans Four decades ago this week, America almost lost its first space station. On the morning of 14 May 1973, the last in a generation of Saturn V boosters sat on Pad 39A, ready for its journey into space. Visually, it was quite distinct from its predecessors, possessing two stages, instead of three, and in place of what would [...]
Successful EVA Fixes Ammonia Leak
Expedition 35 Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn ventured outside the International Space Station (ISS) to inspect and replace a pump controller box, which was the suspected source of an ammonia coolant leak, on May 11. The two astronauts investigated the cooling loop of power channel 2B on the ISS’s far port truss (P-6). The system appeared to be clean [...]
The Many Views of a Solar Eruption
By now we’re used to the images. In brilliant orange, neon green, or electric blue, we see the ever changing surface of the Sun, its sunspots, flares, and coronal mass ejections. From Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO), Solar Heliophysics Observatory (SOHO), or STEREO, these images combine to tell us what’s going on on the Sun’s surface and how it might affect [...]
Aviation Safety Analyst Flies with Blue Angels
Source: NASA/Jessica Culler Abegael “Abby” Jakey has aviation in her blood, taking her first flight at six months old in a Globe Swift. She hasn’t veered too far away from the industry since. A pilot since she was 17, daughter and sister to commercial airline mechanics, recreational pilots, former Navy enlisted men, and a wife to a commercial airline pilot, [...]
Micrometeoroid Pierces ISS Solar Array
International Space Station commander Chris Hadfield has posted an image to his Twitter account, showing a small hole in one of the station’s solar panels. The image was posted on 29th April, and was accompanied by the following brief synopsis: “Bullet hole – a small stone from the universe went through our solar array. Glad it missed the hull.” Lucky [...]
NASA’s Asteroid Tracking Sensor Green Lighted in Test
NASA’s Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) is an infrared sensor intended to enhance detection and tracking of asteroids and comets. In April, scientists and engineers simulated the temperatures and pressure of deep space, to assess operation and performance of the sensor. NEOCam, an output of 10 years of joint efforts of between Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), University of Rochester, and Teledyne [...]
NASA Will Pay the Entire Cost of Pu-238 Production
NASA will have to pay for the entire cost of plutonium-238 production, which was resumed a few months ago by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) after almost 25 years. “Since the [Obama] Administration has a ‘user pays’ philosophy, we are now in a position to pay for basically the entire enterprise, including the base infrastructure at the DOE,” NASA [...]
