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Nasa's Juno Zips Past Earth On Way To Jupiter

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A Nasa spacecraft bound for Jupiter will swing by Earth to get the boost it needs to arrive at the giant gas planet in 2016.

Using Earth as a gravitational slingshot is a common trick since there is not a rocket powerful enough to catapult a spacecraft directly to the outer solar system.

Launched in 2011, the Juno spacecraft first zipped past Mars, Earth's closest planetary neighbour.

It looped back and will make a quick pass by Earth on Wednesday to gather momentum for its trip to Jupiter, located 484 million miles from the sun.

During the manoeuvre, the solar-powered, windmill-shaped Juno will briefly pass into Earth's shadow and emerge over India's east coast.

At closest approach, Juno will fly within 350 miles of the Earth's surface, passing over the ocean off the coast of South Africa.

The rendezvous was designed to bump Juno's speed from 78,000 mph relative to the sun to 87,000 mph - enough power to cruise beyond the asteroid belt toward its destination.

During the gravity assist, the spacecraft's JunoCam, a wide-angle colour camera, will snap pictures of the Earth and moon.

Weather permitting, skywatchers in India and South Africa with binoculars or a small telescope may see Juno streak across the sky.

Ham radio operators around the globe were encouraged to say "Hi" in Morse code - a message that may be detected by Juno's radio.

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Nasa's Juno Zips Past Earth On Way To Jupiter

Shutdown slows bid to fix NASA-China controversy

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NASA is trying to resolve an international spat over banning Chinese scientists from a planetary conference but efforts are being hampered by the US government shutdown, a meeting organizer said Wednesday.

Some leading US astronomers have vowed to boycott the conference next month at a US space agency facility in California because six Chinese scientists were told they could not attend.

Beijing's foreign ministry has also described the move as discriminatory, and said academic meetings should remain free of politics.

Organizers of the Second Kepler Science Conference on November 4-8 said they were acting based on a March 2013 order for a moratorium to visits to NASA facilities by citizens of several nations including China.

The basis for the ban was called into question on Tuesday by Congressman Frank Wolf, who authored related legislation in 2011 that he said restricted space cooperation with the Chinese government and Chinese companies but not individuals.

The moratorium and other additional security measures were issued earlier this year by NASA administrator Charles Bolden following a potential security breach at a NASA facility in Virginia by a Chinese citizen, and should have been lifted by now, Wolf said.

Several attempts by AFP to reach NASA spokespeople have gone unanswered.

"The NASA folks are not legally able to read their e-mails. This is the major reason the brouhaha continues, in my opinion," said conference co-organizer Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science, in an email to AFP.

The US government shutdown, in place since October 1 over Republican opposition to President Barack Obama's health care reform, has sent 97 percent of the space agency home without pay along with hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country.

"Representative Wolf's statement has caught the attention of NASA officials, who are working now to see if the problem can be solved," Boss told AFP.

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Shutdown slows bid to fix NASA-China controversy

NASA prepares to launch 3-D printer

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NASA is preparing to launch a 3-D printer into space next year, a toaster-sized game changer that greatly reduces the need for astronauts to load up with every tool, spare part or supply they might ever need.

The printers would serve as a flying factory of infinite designs, creating objects by extruding layer upon layer of plastic from long strands coiled around large spools. Doctors use them to make replacement joints and artists use them to build exquisite jewellery.

In NASA labs, engineers are 3-D printing small satellites that could shoot out of the Space Station and transmit data to earth, as well as replacement parts and rocket pieces that can survive extreme temperatures.

"Any time we realise we can 3-D print something in space, it's like Christmas," said inventor Andrew Filo, who is consulting with NASA on the project.

"You can get rid of concepts like rationing, scarce or irreplaceable."

The spools of plastic could eventually replace racks of extra instruments and hardware, although the upcoming mission is just a demonstration printing job.

"If you want to be adaptable, you have to be able to design and manufacture on the fly, and that's where 3-D printing in space comes in," said Dave Korsmeyer, director of engineering at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, south of San Francisco.

For the first 3-D printer in space test slated for the northern autumn of 2014, NASA had more than a dozen machines to choose from, ranging from $US300 ($A324) desktop models to $US500,000 warehouse builders.

All of them, however, were built for use on Earth, and space travel presented challenges, from the loads and vibrations of launch to the stresses of working in orbit, including microgravity, differing air pressures, limited power and variable temperatures.

As a result, NASA hired Silicon Valley startup Made In Space to build something entirely new.

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NASA prepares to launch 3-D printer

NASA's Space Gliders And The DIY Satellite Revolution

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NASA engineer Jerry Budd has an idea so audacious that it might just work--he wants to use unmanned, autonomous gliders to send small, low-cost satellites into orbit.

The Towed Glider Air-Launch is an experimental project (still awaiting government approval) that would fire air-launching rocket boosters from a drone glider. In Budd's modest words, the proposal offers affordable, flexible access to space. A glider would be towed into high altitudes by military transport aircraft on planned flights and would be released by the plane--the glider would then fire a rocket booster (with a satellite enclosed) into orbit. Afterward, pilots located in remote NASA facilities safely guide the glider home.

The space gliders would be used to launch cubesats into orbit. Cubesats are small, low-cost satellites that weigh under 200 pounds and can be built and sent into orbit for low cost. Right now, it costs about $50,000 to build a cubesat and $100,000 to put one in orbit. Budd's proposal would sharply reduce the cost of sending cubesats into space by allowing specialized drones to handle much of the hard work. Instead of sending cubesats into orbit on Russian rockets, NASA could build a new revenue stream by shipping these small satellites into orbit for other entities--effectively meaning the agency would provide space logistics services.

Budd's proposal riffs off an existing DARPA project to fly satellites into orbit on jets. Instead of using a jet, the conceptcurrently being developed at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center--saves substantial funds and gains performance advantages by not employing a human pilot. NASA research indicates a performance boost to orbit of between 25% and 50%, and launch costs for satellites could be reduced up to 40%.

More important, the glider's lack of in-plane human operators and low weight mean rocket boosters can be fired from the plane with sharply reduced blast concerns. The glider would be towed to altitudes approaching 40,000 feet by a large transport aircraftand from there, rockets would fire, propelling it into space.

We try to keep the glider as light as possible, Budd said during a recent lab demonstration. Every pound of weight on the glider is a pound less for the rocket we're taking into space. The Towed Glider fires lightweight commercial and educational satellites into space; the glider's construction allows it to carry twice its own weight.

The small, lightweight satellites they deploy are used for everything from gamma-ray research to zero-gravity biology experiments. NASA is joining Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and others in hoping cubesats become a big deal for corporations. It's an audacious bet; all three organizations hope making satellite launch and development into a less-than-$100,000 investment will spur private interest.

NASA has built a 24-foot wingspan, twin fuselage proof-of-concept model of the glider and has conducted six test tow flights on an F-106. Final approval of the concept and transformation into a working space delivery system is dependent on government funding and approval. NASA says that potential partnerships with both the Defense Department and private contractors are currently under discussion.

Note: Due to the federal shutdown, NASA representatives were not available to answer additional queries for this story.

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NASA's Space Gliders And The DIY Satellite Revolution

NASA ban on Chinese scientists 'inaccurate': lawmaker

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Washington (AFP) - A decision by NASA to bar Chinese scientists from an upcoming conference was deemed "inaccurate" Tuesday by the US congressman who wrote the law on which the restriction is based.

The US space agency's announcement that Chinese nationals would not be permitted to enter the Second Kepler Science Conference on exoplanets at California's Ames Research Center November 4-8 sparked a boycott by some prominent US astronomers.

"In good conscience, I cannot attend a meeting that discriminates in this way. The meeting is about planets located trillions of miles away, with no national security implications," Geoff Marcy, an astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in an email to the organizers.

The restriction is based on a law passed in 2011 and signed by President Barack Obama that prevents NASA funds from being used to collaborate with China or to host Chinese visitors at US space agency facilities.

The legal language was inserted into a funding bill by Congressman Frank Wolf, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies.

The law bans NASA funds from being used to work "bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company" or being "used to effectuate the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or utilized by NASA," according to a copy of the legal text sent to AFP by Wolf's office.

However, Wolf's office issued a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday seeking to correct an article on the matter that first appeared Friday in The Guardian newspaper, as well as NASA's stance.

"Unfortunately, the article is riddled with inaccuracies, as is, it appears, the guidance provided by NASA Ames staff to the attendees," said the letter.

The law "primarily restricts bilateral, not multilateral, meetings and activities with the Communist Chinese government or Chinese-owned companies," it said.

"It places no restrictions on activities involving individual Chinese nationals unless those nationals are acting as official representatives of the Chinese government."

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NASA ban on Chinese scientists 'inaccurate': lawmaker

American Scientists boycott NASA Conference that bans Chinese Nationals | 10tv – Video

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American Scientists boycott NASA Conference that bans Chinese Nationals | 10tv
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American Scientists boycott NASA Conference that bans Chinese Nationals | 10tv - Video

NASA's moon landing remembered today as a promise of a 'future which never happened'

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NASA's footage of the first moon landing promised a future of sci-fi heroism that never came to pass, according to a new study.

The paper, by Professor Steve Brown and Professor Martin Parker, of the University of Leicester's School of Management, and Dr Lewis Goodings, of the University of Roehampton, is published in the International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy.

The first moon landing is overwhelmingly remembered as an exciting and important turning point in world history, which continues to inspire space exploration projects to Mars and beyond today.

However, the new study shows how NASA used images of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing to develop a narrative of its own importance for the future.

The academics claim NASA carefully selected footage to present Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts as pioneering "cowboys" supported by "technological efficiency".

NASA's shots of the astronauts walking purposefully towards the launch bay repeated regularly in TV coverage of the landing were carefully crafted to mimic the slow walk of Cowboys in the cinematic tradition of Westerns, they argue.

The academics compare NASA's claim to historical importance with organisations like Walt Disney Productions and Pan American World Airways.

They also note how often the images were repeated in media which "premeditated" the idea that the moon landing represented the future.

They contrast this with people's ideas today about how space travel actually progressed in the latter half of the 20th century which saw only five further manned moon landings, ending in 1972.

The academics analysed more than 400 "memory cards" left by visitors to the National Space Centre which contained people's recollections of the moon landing and the 1960s.

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NASA's moon landing remembered today as a promise of a 'future which never happened'

NASA Looking To Commercial Sector For New Technology And Materials

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Mon, Oct 07, 2013

It costs $50,000 to launch a gallon of water into space. To reduce costs, NASA partners with the private sector for specialized research and to develop new materials. Speaking on behalf of NASA on October 15, 2013, Mayur Ahuja, Deputy Director of Engineering at Jacobs Engineering Group, will share insights on the roadmap for upcoming projects to guide companies interested in supporting future projects.

"NASA wants to develop new technologies and extend existing ones by partnering with the commercial sector to advance long-range missions," Ahuja said. "The goal is to lower the cost of operating in space and of sustaining that operation, as well as to increase the performance of space hardware."

NASA seeks fresh perspectives to its daily challenges from all types of organizations. Where possible, it uses items that are commercially available and have been well researched and tested. Ahuja will present in the Tech Theater, located on the tradeshow floor, at The Texas Advanced Manufacturing Expo. The Tech Theater is part of UBM Canon's commitment to providing attendees with relevant, free educational material. Presentations highlight the latest technological innovation, industry developments and trends.

The Texas Advanced Manufacturing Expo and Conference takes place October 15-16, 2013 at the Reliant Center in Houston. Thousands of area manufacturers will have the opportunity to see demonstrations from more than 350 exhibitors showcasing new products, technologies and service offerings. Attendees will find ample opportunities to meet new customers and suppliers to make their operations globally competitive.

The event is supported by local manufacturing organizations and universities including the Houston Bulk Materials Handling Society, Society of Plastics Engineers, Rice University, Greater Houston Manufacturers Association, and Process Equipment Manufacturers Association.

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NASA Looking To Commercial Sector For New Technology And Materials


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