NASA on Thursday tested the powerpack assembly for the J-2X engine, an important component of NASA’s next-generation heavy-lift rocket. The J-2X powerpack assembly was test-fired at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The engine will power the upper stage of …
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NASA Tests Liquid Hydrogen/Oxygen Engine For Upcoming Heavy Rocket
It has been 50 years since NASA's Mariner 2 spacecraft traveled 36 million miles to Venus for the first-ever close-up view of another planet.
This is a big milestone. Not only did that mission mark the beginning of interstellar exploration, but it also came at a time when morale was low: The U.S. hadn't truly had a space "first" in five years. Meanwhile, as America's space program stood stagnant, the Soviet Union continued to advance its efforts in space.
[More from Mashable: The Geminid Meteor Shower in Stunning Photos]
NASA recently released an online interactive map where you can relive this milestone and other big moments in space exploration, from 1962 through Curiosity's landing this year.
We all probably remember the major space headlines, but what about the cool stuff that we didn't hear about? What were NASA employees' favorite memories? Mashable asked five Jet Propulsion Laboratory workers to share the space moments they will never forget. Here are their stories in their own words.
[More from Mashable: Ancient Galaxy May Be Most Distant Ever Seen]
Rob Manning, Chief Engineer, Mars Science Laboratory Mission
At 10:30 a.m. on the Fourth of July in 1997 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as head of the entry, descent and landing team and Chief Engineer, I was staring at a computer screen watching a series of dramatic events flip by that had been unfolding millions of miles away.
Mars Pathfinder, with the little Sojourner rover safely tucked inside, was landing on Mars. On my headset, I was straining to hear my colleagues on the other side of the Earth in Madrid who were watching analog displays showing signals from Mars via a massive dish antenna.
"I have all eyes watching," Sami Asmar says, only seconds after the time my display has predicted that the lander should be bouncing in its airbag cocoon. "We see a weak signal," he says. "A signal is barely visible!" I repeat it into my microphone while being watched by perhaps millions of people. I knew then that Pathfinder had run the gauntlet and had made a safe contact with the surface on another planet.
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NASA hacker Gary McKinnon #39;To Face No Further Criminal Charges #39; in the UK
NASA hacker Gary McKinnon will face no legal action in the UK.US authorities started their bid to extradite McKinnon in 2005, accusing him of causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage by hacking into NASA and military systems in 2002. McKinnon admitted to the intrusion, but claimed he was looking for evidence of UFO activity.From:hotamerican potViews:0 0ratingsTime:01:16More inNews Politics
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NASA hacker Gary McKinnon 'To Face No Further Criminal Charges' in the UK - Video
Chemtrails covering the Second Sun?
Love you all.Peace. It #39;s Coming?2013 will be crucial. Still looking for answers.Peace.and be well. Check for yourself. http://www.sciechimiche.org http://www.tanker-enemy.com http://www.wunderground.com http://www.youtube.com http://www.pakalertpress.com mkwc.ifa.hawaii.edu http://www.emsc-csem.org http://www.antarcticconnection.com helioviewer.org sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov skycam.mmto.arizona.edu irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu http://www.the-webcam-network.com http://www.goes.noaa.gov cor1.gsfc.nasa.gov http://www.huffingtonpost.com hubblesite.org http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu http://www.rsi.ch secchi.nrl.navy.mil stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov mohavecountyconstitution.com http://www.wunderground.com please comment-share-subscribeFrom:nano63aViews:1 0ratingsTime:03:44More inEducation
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NASA Radar Images Asteroid Toutatis
This 64-frame movie of asteroid Toutatis was generated from data by Goldstone #39;s Solar System Radar on Dec. 12 and 13, 2012.From:NASASolarSystemViews:5 1ratingsTime:00:40More inScience Technology
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NASA Here #39;s Looking at You Kid
From:JCProFilmsViews:0 0ratingsTime:24:04More inPeople Blogs
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We are the Universe
Watch in 1080P HD for the best viewing experience. Created by Tim Asdoorian for Stanford University #39;s HumBio 183: Astrobiology and Space Exploration taught by NASA Ames #39;s Lynn Rothschild. Check out Tim #39;s channel for more great videos: http://www.youtube.com FREE LECTURES and more info can be found at: http://www.stanford.edu Credits: Carl Sagan (Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot) Neil deGrasse Tyson (Time Questions) Lawrence Krauss (A Universe from Nothing) Music: "Someday I #39;ll be Redeemed" - Epic Score "Leaving Earth" - Mass Effect 3 Soundtrack Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. All copyrighted materials contained herein belong to their respective copyright holders, I do not claim ownership over any of these materials. I realize no profit, monetary or otherwise, from the exhibition of these videos.From:bdwilson1000Views:82 30ratingsTime:05:47More inEducation
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Massive Solar Prominence Eruption | December, 14 2012
Recorded on December, 13-14 2012 | 21h30-07h00 UTC Massive Prominence Eruption over the W Limb detected around Farside AR11608-11627. This event has provoked a large CME (Targets: Mercury, Venus, STEREO-A) and a Coronal dimming on SW sector with bright magnetic loops emergence. This event was followed by a Large Filament Eruption on eastern sector, visible only on the 1st AIA304 sequence. AIA compositions | Full HD Quality Video | 1920x1080p More real-time Solar data/Imagery/Activity: - Gnosia Research | SIC: Solar Imagery Center http://www.gnosia-research.fr "Courtesy of NASA/SOHO-SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams." sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov - Solar Heliospheric Observatory - SOHO: sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov - The Sun Today - LMSAL: sdowww.lmsal.com - http://www.SolarMonitor.org: http://www.solarmonitor.org - NOAA / Space Weather Prediction Center: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov - SOLARHAM.com: http://www.solarham.net - spaceweather.com: http://www.spaceweather.comFrom:GnosiaResearchViews:0 0ratingsTime:01:52More inScience Technology
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Massive Solar Prominence Eruption | December, 14 2012 - Video
Asteroid 4179 Toutatis
Scientists working with NASA #39;s 230-foot-wide Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., have generated a series of radar data images of a three-mile-long asteroid that made its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 12, 2012. The images that make up the movie clip were generated with data taken on Dec. 12 and 13, 2012. On Dec. 12, the day of its closest approach to Earth, Toutatis was about 18 lunar distances, 4.3 million miles from Earth. On Dec. 13, the asteroid was about 4.4 million miles, or about 18.2 lunar distances. The radar data images of asteroid Toutatis indicate that it is an elongated, irregularly shaped object with ridges and perhaps craters. Along with shape detail, scientists are also seeing some interesting bright glints that could be surface boulders. Toutatis has a very slow, tumbling rotational state. The asteroid rotates about its long axis every 5.4 days and precesses (changes the orientation of its rotational axis) like a wobbling, badly thrown football, every 7.4 days. The orbit of Toutatis is well understood. The next time Toutatis will approach at least this close to Earth is in November of 2069, when the asteroid will safely fly by at about 7.7 lunar distances, or 1.8 million miles. An analysis indicates there is zero possibility of an Earth impact over the entire interval over which its motion can be accurately computed, which is about the next four centuries. This radar data imagery will help scientists improve their understanding of the ...From:Kowch737Views:0 0ratingsTime:00:40More inScience Technology
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NASA's "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday" explains facts and fictions of the Mayan calender, debunks fears of 2012 apocalypse
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NASA will smash two tiny probes into the moon next week after they spent months gathering data from orbit miles above the lunar surface.
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NASA's latest video debunking doomsday hype comes from the future — to be precise, from Dec. 22, one day after the expected peak for worries that the end of an ancient Maya calendar cycle will signal the end of the world as well.
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This graphic highlights locations on the moon NASA considers "lunar heritage sites" and the path NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory spacecraft will take on their final flight. Image released Dec. 13, 2012.
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Two NASA moon probes will end their gravity-mapping mission in spectacular fashion Monday (Dec. 17), crashing intentionally into a cliff near the lunar north pole.
The twin Grail spacecraft, known as Ebb and Flow, will slam into the raised rim of a moon crater at 5:28 p.m. EST (2258 GMT) Monday, mission team members said today (Dec. 13). The probes will impact about 20 seconds apart, with each traveling at 3,760 mph (6,050 kph) or so.
The crash zone is far from any area where previous moon missions such as NASA's Apollo efforts touched down, so Grail's final moments won't endanger sites of historical importance, officials said.
A successful mission comes to an end
The $496 million Grail mission short for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory launched in September 2011, and Ebb and Flow arrived in lunar orbit about three months later. The two probes have been zipping around the moon ever since, mapping its gravity field in unprecedented detail.
"Grail has produced the highest-resolution, highest-quality gravity field for any planet in the solar system, including Earth," Grail principal investigator Maria Zuber, of MIT, told reporters today. [Video: Ebb and Flow's Impending Crash]
That map has revealed an incredibly pulverized lunar crust, she added, suggesting that the moon, Earth, Mars, Mercury and Venus were pounded by long-ago impacts far more violently than previously thought.
Grail's primary science mission ran from March to May, during which the spacecraft zipped around the moon at an average altitude of 34 miles (55 kilometers). Ebb and Flow dropped down to about 14 miles (23 km) for an extended phase, which wraps up in the next few days and should make the gravity map even better.
There will be no more extended missions, because Ebb and Flow are almost out of fuel. The spacecraft will crash into the lunar surface eventually, so the Grail team is bringing them down in a controlled fashion. (An uncontrolled crash would pose an eight-in-a-million risk of hitting a heritage site, researchers said.)
"This is all according to plan," Zuber said.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA plans to crash a pair of small robotic science probes into the moon next week after a successful year-long mission to learn what lies beneath the lunar surface, officials said on Thursday.
The twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, spacecraft will make suicidal plunges on Monday into a mountain near the moon's north pole, a site selected to avoid the chance of hitting any of the Apollo or other lunar relics.
The impacts, which are not expected to be visible from Earth, will take place about 20 seconds apart at 5:28 p.m. EST (2228 GMT) on Monday.
"They're going to be completely blown apart," GRAIL project manager David Lehman, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told reporters on a conference call.
Almost out of fuel and currently flying just 7 miles above the lunar surface, the probes will make a final steering maneuver on Friday and shut down their science instruments in preparation for Monday's crash.
The two spacecraft, each about the size of a small washing machine, have been flying in close formation around the moon for nearly a year to map the lunar gravity.
Scientists precisely measure the distance between the two, a figure that slightly changes as they fly over denser regions of the moon. The gravitational pull of the additional mass causes first the leading probe and then the following one to speed up, altering the gap between them.
Gravity maps from the first part of the mission, collected between March and May 2012 when the spacecraft were about 34 miles above the lunar surface, revealed the moon has a shallower and much more fractured crust than expected - the result of asteroid and comet impacts billions of years ago.
"We know that the moon had been bombarded by impacts but what we found is just how broken up and fractured the crust of the moon is," said lead scientist Maria Zuber, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Similar bombardments happened on all the solid bodies of the inner solar system though the evidence on Earth has been erased by erosion, plate tectonics and other phenomena.
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There is a summary lack of confidence in NASA's ability to explore outer space these days. The press is full of recent accounts that are critical of NASA's ability to advance American goals for space exploration, create a Mars colony, not to mention expanding a program of planetary exploration and the colonization of the outer planets of our solar system. The decreased allocation of funds to ...
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NASA, Got Space Exploration? Get Goals, Get Funding and Get Uhura.
We'll never know if they were wrong.
NASA has quietly published a web video explaining why the world did not come to an end "yesterday," Dec. 21, 2012.
The date of its release, December 11, was no mistake, even if doomsayers would likely call it one last act of earthly hubris. NASA uploaded the four-minute "ScienceCasts" explainer, titled "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday," in an effort to answer hundreds of calls and emails they receive daily. It also has a dedicated website that's received at least 4.6 million visitors - people asking if the Maya prophecy is coming true and what they should do about it.
"If there was anything out there, like a planet headed for Earth, said NASA Astrobiologist David Morrison, it would already be one of the brightest objects in the sky," the narrator explains in a cheerfully pedantic voice. "Everybody on Earth could see it. You don't need to ask the government, just go out and look. It's not there."
(Note: Still not convinced? Consider this: Even if the Maya, a declining Mesoamerican civilization wiped almost entirely off the map by 17 th century Spanish conquistadors, are to be trusted with this kind of high-stakes stuff, scientists agree that reports concerning their prediction of our collective demise have been greatly exaggerated, if not fabricated. Anthropologists say the Mayan calendar was cyclical, and frequently restarted without ending.)
As for rumors about solar flares and reports the sun is reaching the "max of its 11-year solar cycle," well, that's all true. But NASA calls is it the "wimpiest cycle" of the past 50 years.
Anyway, "the sun has been flaring for billions of years and it has never, once, destroyed the world."
Dwayne Brown, a senior public affair officer at NASA, said the space agency felt a sense of duty as the date neared. People have been calling in to headquarters "who want to do harm to their families" in an effort to protect them from the unknown horrors expected to arrive with the Maya apocalypse, he said.
"As the attention on the issue is growing," the video's producer and director Michael Brody said, "we didn't want the rumors growing. The idea is to take a straight, stoic, standard [scientific] look and give it a hook."
"You're the smart guys, you know what's up in space," Brown said, his way of distilling public sentiment toward NASA. "Well, we do!"
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SAN FRANCISCO Though NASA is devoting many of its exploration resources to Mars these days, the agency still has its eye on an icy moon of Jupiter that may be capable of supporting life as we know it.
Last week, NASA officials announced that they plan to launch a $1.5 billion rover to Mars in 2020, adding to a string of Red Planet missions already on the docket. The Curiosity rover just landed this past August, for example, and an orbiter called Maven and a lander named InSight are slated to blast off in 2013 and 2016, respectively.
But NASA is also thinking about ways to investigate the possible habitability of Europa, Jupiter's fourth-largest moon. One concept that may be gaining traction is a so-called "clipper" probe that would make multiple flybys of the moon, studying its icy shell and suspected subsurface ocean as it zooms past.
"We briefed [NASA] headquarters on Monday, and they responded very positively," mission proponent David Senske, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said here Dec. 7 at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. [Photos: Europa, Mysterious Icy Moon of Jupiter]
The $2 billion unmanned EuropaClipper, which could be ready to launch by 2021 or so, would also do vital reconnaissance work for a potential lander mission in the future, Senske told SPACE.com.
Intriguing Europa
Astrobiologists regard Europa, which is about 1,900 miles (3,100 kilometers) wide, as one of the best bets in our solar system to host life beyond Earth.
The moon is believed to harbor a large ocean of liquid waterbeneath its icy shell. Further, this ocean is likely in direct contact with Europa's rocky mantle, raising the possibility of all sorts of interesting chemical reactions, Senske said.
The irradiation of Europa's surface and tidal heating of its interior also mean the moon likely has ample energy sources another key requirement for life as we know it.
NASA has long been interested in exploring the icy moon and its ocean. Several years back, the agency drew up an ambitious mission concept called the Jupiter Europa Orbiter(JEO), which would have made detailed studies of Europa and the incredibly volcanic Jupiter moon Io.
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NASA's GRAIL mission on the Moon will come to an end on December 17th as its two probes crash into the Lunar surface.
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Is This Why Saturn Ate His Children? (13th Dec 2012)
THYALWAYSSEEK FACEBOOK GROUP: http://www.facebook.com Huge Saturn Vortex Swirls in Stunning NASA Photos: http://www.space.com Saturnalia: en.wikipedia.org Black Stone of Mecca: en.wikipedia.orgFrom:ThyalwaysseekViews:106 13ratingsTime:14:56More inScience Technology
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Is This Why Saturn Ate His Children? (13th Dec 2012) - Video