NASA pulled the plug on its last powered space shuttle today (May 11), 20 years after it flew its first mission. Continue reading
Category Archives: NASA
NASA unplugs last space shuttle, Endeavour
NASA pulled the plug on its last powered space shuttle Friday, 20 years after it flew its first mission. Space shuttle technicians working inside Orbiter Processing Facility-2 (OPF-2) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida powered down Endeavour, the youngest of the retired fleet’s orbiters, at 9:58 a.m. Continue reading
NASA's Budget Woes Require Tough Space Tech Balancing Act
LOS ANGELES — With NASA facing tight budget constraints, the space agency must strike a balance between devoting funds to keep existing missions and spacecraft operating, while also investing in new technology and innovation for future exploration, an agency official said this week. Continue reading
SpaceX Crew Accommodations System Receives NASA Approval
May 9, 2012 Image Caption: Interior of DragonRider mock-up, showing the seat configuration. Credit: NASA Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule has received NASA approval for their crew accommodations system, bringing the private-sector firms spacecraft one step closer to a commercial test flight, the US space agency announced Tuesday Continue reading
NASA conducts tests on Orion service module
ScienceDaily (May 9, 2012) Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center are testing parts of the Orion service module to ensure the spacecraft can withstand the harsh realities of deep space missions. To date, Marshall has completed two structural loads tests, and another is under way. Continue reading
NASA spacecraft detects changes in Martian sand dunes
ScienceDaily (May 9, 2012) NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed that movement in sand dune fields on the Red Planet occurs on a surprisingly large scale, about the same as in dune fields on Earth. Continue reading
NASA's Spitzer sees the light of alien 'super-Earth'
ScienceDaily (May 8, 2012) NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a “super-Earth” planet beyond our solar system for the first time. Continue reading
Thank You, Space! How NASA Tech Makes Life Better on Earth
The lunar rover from the Apollo 17 mission on the moons surface. Where has NASA technology wound up since? Continue reading
Video: NASA monitoring "monster sunspots"
Nicholas Katzenbach, civil-rights policy defender, dies at 90 As deputy attorney general in 1963, Nicholas Katzenbach confronted Alabama’s segregationist governor demanding he obey a federal court order to admit two black students to the all-white University of Alabama. Scott Pelley reports the trusted adviser to JFK and LBJ has died at the age of 90. Continue reading
NASA 'space taxi' will reduce reliance on Russia to go to International Space Station
NASA needs a new service after retiring space shuttle last year Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos runs of four companies research space taxi service By Eddie Wrenn PUBLISHED: 06:45 EST, 10 May 2012 | UPDATED: 07:53 EST, 10 May 2012 Two of NASA’s biggest contractors are teaming up with a European agency to create a ‘space taxi’ for when astronauts need a quick lift away from this planet. Currently, NASA must ‘catch a ride’ from the Russian space agency when astronauts want to visit the International Space Station, following the retirement of the space shuttle last year Continue reading
NASA Detects The Light Of A 'Super-Earth'
NASA announced yesterday that for the first time, it's seen the light of a planet outside of our solar system that is similar in size to the Earth. Continue reading
NASA Budget Cuts Draw Threat of Presidential Veto
A 2013 spending bill that would fund NASA’s commercial crew program below the level President Barack Obama requested drew a veto threat Monday (May 7) as the U.S. House of Representatives was preparing to begin debate on the proposal. Continue reading
Shuttle rocket-builder vying for NASA space taxi work
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Two of NASA's prime contractors are teaming with Europe's Astrium to develop a commercial space taxi built from shuttle heritage booster rockets and a prototype NASA spaceship originally designed as an alternative to the deep-space Orion capsule, the companies announced on Wednesday. Continue reading
NASA, SETI Use Airship to Hunt Meteorites From Big Fireball
In what must be a meteorite-hunting first, a team of scientists took a zeppelin out Thursday (May 3) to search for fragments from a rare daytime fireball that exploded over California last month. Continue reading
How Google Execs Get Fly at NASA Ames
You know the name Google, but have you heard of H211? It’s the private holding company named after a hangar at NASA’s Moffett Field. Inside that hangar sits a fleet of airplanes that have been parked there since 2007. Continue reading
NASA's ER-2 completes MABEL validation deployment
ScienceDaily (May 5, 2012) NASA’s high-flying ER-2 Airborne Science aircraft has concluded its four-week deployment to validate data acquired by the Multiple Altimeter Beam Experiment Lidar (MABEL) laser altimeter over the Greenland ice cap and surrounding sea ice fields. After an almost 10 and one-half hour transit flight from its deployment base in Keflavik, Iceland, NASA ER-2 pilot Stu Broce landed ER-2 806 April 27 at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif. The lengthy flight from Iceland included data collection by the MABEL instrument over a portion of broadleaf deciduous forest in Wisconsin. Continue reading
Stunning Ice Views Captured by Airborne NASA Mission
Arctic ice is undergoing rapid changes, and for the fourth year running, NASA scientists are flying missions above the region's forbidding landscapes to monitor the changes taking place there. Continue reading
NASA, ESA confirm hacks; The Unknowns says systems patched
Summary: NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have confirmed they were recently hacked. The hacking group The Unknowns says most of the 10 companies it attacked have patched their systems Continue reading
NASA Langley deploys jet to Arctic to collect data on climate change
HAMPTON A NASA Langley jet is flying above the icy deep-blue expanse of Greenland on a mission to research climate change. Continue reading
Hackers Group Hits NASA, USAF
May 4, 2012 7:25pm A previously unknown hackers group calling themselves The Unknowns has compromised websites and obtained documents from NASA, the U.S. Air Force, the French Ministry of Defense, the European Space Agency, the Bahrain Ministry of Defense, the Thai Royal Navy and Harvard Universitys School of Public Health Continue reading