As we await the final launch of a space shuttle, here’s a blast from the past: the first ever space shuttle mission (complete with early 80?s funky music). Columbia launched on the first flight (STS-1) on April 12, 1981 and landed in California on April 14.
Tagged as: Space Flight, Space Shuttle, STS-1Friday, July 8, 2011
Atlantis Unveiled for Historic Final Flight amidst Stormy Weather
Atlantis awaits blastoff on STS-135 Mission. Credit: Ken Kremer
Video below of Lightning Strike near Shuttle Launch Pad
The last Space Shuttle in history that will blast off for space was unveiled today at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida amidst terrible weather. Heavy rain showers and thunderstorms are inundating the space center during prelaunch preparations for the blast off of Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Two lightning strikes occurred within about a third of a mile of Launch Pad 39 at 12:31 p.m. and 12:40 p.m. EDT. After engineering teams evaluated data from the strikes, NASA shuttle managers decided it was safe to proceed with launch preparations.
Following about a 40 minute delay, Atlantis was unveiled for liftoff after retraction of the massive rotating service structure which protects the orbiter from inclement weather and impacts from foreign object debris.
IMG_9164a_STS 135_Ken KremerThe chances of favorable weather for launch of the STS-135 mission on Friday July 8 are just 30%, meaning 70% NO GO said Shuttle Weather officer Kathy Winters at a briefing for reporters today at KSC. Liftoff is targeted for 11:26 a.m. EDT.
NASA has a narrow window of three opportunities on July 8, 9 and 10 and must then stand down for nearly a week because the US Air Force has scheduled a Delta rocket launch on July 14. If the Air Force would agree to delay the Delta by few days, NASA could launch Atlantis on Monday or Tuesday in case for further launch delays.
Upwards of 750,000 spectators are expected.
Atlantis goal is deliver the Raffaello logistics module and the Robotic Refueling Mission to the ISS on a 12 day mission that will end the shuttle era.
Atlantis poised on for the final time on Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Ken Kremer 
Closeup of the White Room leading to the crew cabin. Credit: Ken Kremer Video of Lightning Strike near Shuttle Launch Pad
Tagged as: International Space Station (ISS), ISS, NASA, Space Shuttle, space shuttle atlantis, STS-135Milky Way Sparkles In The Eyes Of Gaia
Gaia Camera Array - Credit: Astrium / ESAHere on Earth we play around with CCD cameras that boast a million pixels. But, can you imagine what a billion pixels could do? That’s the plan for ESA’s Galaxy-mapping Gaia mission. One hundred six electronic plates are being carefully integrated together to add up to the largest digital camera ever built for space… and its mission is to chart the Milky Way.
Beginning in 2013, Gaia’s five year mission will be to photograph a billion stars within our own galaxy – determining magnitude, spectral characteristics, proper motion and dimensional positioning. This information will be gathered by its charge coupled device (CCD) sensor array. Each of the 106 detectors are smaller than a normal credit card and thinner than a human hair. Put simplistically, each plate holds its own array of light-sensitive cells called photosites. Each photosite is its own pixel – just one tiny cell in the whole body of a photograph that could contain hundreds of thousands of pixels! When incoming light strikes the photosite, the photoelectric effect occurs and creates electrons for as long as exposure occurs. The electrons are then kept “stored” in their individual cells until a computer unloads the array, counts the electrons and reassembles them into the “big picture”.
And what a picture it will be…
In a period of a month, technicians managed to delicately assemble the CCD plates onto the support structure, leaving only a 1 mm gap between them. “The mounting and precise alignment of the 106 CCDs is a key step in the assembly of the flight model focal plane assembly,” said Philippe Gare, ESA’s Gaia payload manager. Upon completion, there will be seven rows of CCD composites with a main bank of 102 strictly dedicated to star detection. The remaining four will monitor image quality of each telescope and the stability of the 106.5? angle between the two telescopes that Gaia uses to obtain stereo views of stars. And, just like cooling a smaller CCD camera, the temperature needs to be maintained at -110?C to keep up the sensitivity.
Gaia might be heavy on imaging capabilities, but she’s light on weight. The majority of the spacecraft, including the support structure is crafted from a ceramic-like material called silicon carbide. Resistant to warping in extreme temperature conditions, the whole support structure with its detectors weighs in at only 20 kg. She’ll sail out to Lagrange Point L2 – 1.5 million kilometers behind the Earth – where twin telescopes will capture perhaps 1% of our galaxy’s stellar population. While that may seem like a small amount, the information that Gaia’s three-dimensional star map will provide can reveal much more than we already know about the composition, formation and evolution of the Milky Way.
Original Story Source: ESA News.
The Sights And Sounds of Saturn’s Super Storm
The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSIIt’s five hundred times bigger than any anything like it observed by the Cassini Mission in the last two years. It’s encompassing approximately 2 billion square miles (4 billion square kilometers) of Saturn’s surface. It’s releasing lightning bolts at a rate of ten per second and it’s happening ten times more frequently than other storms monitored since 2004. It’s so intense that’s it’s even visible in larger amateur telescopes. Just what is it? A Saturn Super Storm…
“Last December, a remarkable thing happened at Saturn. A massive, hissing, lightning-producing storm violently erupted in the northern mid-latitudes of Saturn’s atmosphere and grew to gargantuan proportions.” says Carolyn Porco. “By the end of January, it had wrapped itself entirely around the planet, developing an enormous degree of wavy, even sensuous, details, reminiscent of the clouds on Jupiter.”
Known as “Great White Spots”, these huge storms aren’t new to Saturn – they are common each Saturnian year. While they are common to the ringed planet’s northern summer, right now it’s northern spring. This makes the Saturn Super Storm an early – and unexpected – arrival.
“Prior to the planet’s August 2009 northern vernal equinox, when the sun was shining in the southern hemisphere, the location of all observed storm activity on Saturn was a band encircling the planet at 35 degrees south latitude that imaging scientists had dubbed `Storm Alley’. Well, to our great puzzlement, this new storm — now 500 times larger than any previously seen by Cassini at Saturn and 8 times the surface area of Earth — has erupted at 35 degrees /north/ latitude.” says Ms. Porco. “The shadow cast by Saturn’s rings has a strong seasonal effect, and it is possible that the switch to powerful storms now being located in the northern hemisphere is related to the change of seasons and the changing position of Saturn’s ring shadow. But why the obvious hemispheric symmetry in storm eruption exists is not yet known.”
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was listening to the sounds of the storm, too. Much like our terrestrial lightning causes a static effect on an AM radio, Saturn creates a phenomena known as Saturn electrostatic discharges. Check out this audio file of the action!
“The storm is also a prodigious source of radio noise, which comes from lightning deep in the planet’s atmosphere. As on Earth, the lightning is produced in the water clouds, where falling rain and hail generate electricity. The mystery is why Saturn stores energy for decades and releases it all at once. This behavior is unlike that at Jupiter and Earth, which have numerous storms occurring at any one time.” explains Dr. Porco.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captures a composite near-true-color view of the huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSIViolent, yes… But incredibly beautiful. This false color image reveals clouds at different altitudes as seen by the Cassini spacecraft from a distance of approximately 1.5 million miles (2.4 million kilometers). Blue represents high and semi-transparent. Yellow and white are optically thick at high altitudes. Green is intermediate, while red and brown are low altitude unobscured by high clouds. Last, but not least is dark blue – a thin haze with nothing but Saturn below it. Scientists theorize the lightning is formed at the base cloud layer where water ice is covered by crystallized ammonia.
“This storm is thrilling because it shows how shifting seasons and solar illumination can dramatically stir up the weather on Saturn,” said Georg Fischer, a radio and plasma wave science team member at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Graz. “We have been observing storms on Saturn for almost seven years, so tracking a storm so different from the others has put us at the edge of our seats.”
Original Story Source: JPL / NASA News.
What’s Next? Adventure Is Out There
For anyone thinking that the end of the space shuttle program means the end of human spaceflight, I can’t find a better response than this new video from the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. What’s next could be the greatest adventure ever.
Tagged as: Commercial Space, Space Exploration, Space Flight, Space Shuttle, VideosFriday, July 1, 2011
Reason to Serve Red Wine on the Space Station?
Cosmonauts gather to have some cognac on the Mir space station in 1997. The image was taken by NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger.Some new research may make NASA reconsider its “no alcohol in space” policy. A new study suggests that the “healthy” ingredient in red wine, resveratrol, may prevent the negative effects that weightlessness has on muscle and bone metabolism. This also could apply to people who live sedentary lifestyles.
The study had rats in the simulated the weightlessness of spaceflight, and the group that was fed resveratrol did not develop loss of bone mineral density or develop insulin resistance, as did those who were not fed resveratrol.
Weightlessness was simulated by hindlimb tail suspension, a common technique used to study weightlessness physiology. The control group that was not given resveratrol showed a decrease in soleus muscle mass and strength, the development of insulin resistance, and a loss of bone mineral density. The group receiving resveratrol showed none of these complications.
“There are overwhelming data showing that the human body needs physical activity, but for some of us, getting that activity isn’t easy,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the journal Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). “A low gravity environment makes it nearly impossible for astronauts. For the earthbound, barriers to physical activity are equally challenging, whether they be disease, injury, or a desk job. Resveratrol may not be a substitute for exercise, but it could slow deterioration until someone can get moving again.”
Of course, resveratrol can be taken in supplement form, but why spoil the fun? It is well known that Russian cosmonauts have imbibed in space, although probably not on the International Space Station. Alexander Lazutkin, who served aboard the Mir space station has said that Russian doctors recommended alcohol for “neutralizing the harmful effect of the atmosphere,” to keep cosmonauts “in tone” and to neutralize tension.
Weissmann added that red wine could become the “toast of the Milky Way.”
The study was published in the FASEB Journal
Sources: EurekAlert, Cosmic Log
Tagged as: Space Flight, Space StationAncient Galaxies Fed On Gas, Not Collisions
The Sombrero Galaxy. Credit: ESO/P. BartheThe traditional picture of galaxy growth is not pretty. In fact, it’s a kind of cosmic cannibalism: two galaxies are caught in ominous tango, eventually melding together in a fiery collision, thus spurring on an intense but short-lived bout of star formation. Now, new research suggests that most galaxies in the early Universe increased their stellar populations in a considerably less violent way, simply by burning through their own gas over long periods of time. The research was conducted by a group of astronomers at NASA’s Spitzer Science Center in Pasadena, California. The team used the Spitzer Space Telescope to peer at 70 distant galaxies that flourished when the Universe was only 1-2 billion years old. The spectra of 70% of these galaxies showed an abundance of H alpha, an excited form of hydrogen gas that is prevalent in busy star-forming regions. Today, only one out of every thousand galaxies carries such an abundance of H alpha; in fact, the team estimates that star formation in the early Universe outpaced that of today by a factor of 100!
This split view shows how a normal spiral galaxy around our local universe (left) might have looked back in the distant universe, when astronomers think galaxies would have been filled with larger populations of hot, bright stars (right). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI Not only did these early galaxies crank out stars much faster than their modern-day counterparts, but they created much larger stars as well. By grazing on their own stores of gas, galaxies from this epoch routinely formed stars up to 100 solar masses in size.
These impressive bouts of star formation occurred over the course of hundreds of millions of years. The extremely long time scales involved suggest that while they probably played a minor role, galaxy mergers were not the main precursor to star formation in the Universe’s younger years. “This type of galactic cannibalism was rare,” said Ranga-Ram Chary, a member of the team. “Instead, we are seeing evidence for a mechanism of galaxy growth in which a typical galaxy fed itself through a steady stream of gas, making stars at a much faster rate than previously thought.” Even on cosmic scales, it would seem that slow and steady really does win the race.
Source: JPL
Tagged as: Cosmology, galaxies, H Alpha, Spitzer, Spitzer Space Telescope, star formation
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