Daily Archives: December 7, 2014

Provided by Popular Science

Last month, six astronauts convened in New York City to discuss STS-125, the last mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, which happened in 2009. As it approached its 20th birthday, the telescope was in desperate need of an upgrade. The orbital optics, batteries, and other equipment had slowly deteriorated due to sun exposure and age.

Space Shuttle mission STS-125 was deployed to renovate the telescope in a series of space walks. For a lot of missions, they say dont worry about things, we can always get that done next time, you dont have to try and rush, Scott Altman, the former mission commander of STS-125, tells Popular Science. But we knew this was the last time anyone was going, so anything we didnt get done, wasnt going to get done.

Eventually Earth's gravity will pull the telescope to a fiery death.

Despite the pressures of the operation, the crew members recalled how they managed to upgrade Hubble as much as possible during five long, arduous space walks, ensuring the telescopes operational capabilities well beyond the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.

Now Hubble is coming up on 25 years old, and NASA doesnt have any official plans for upgrading the telescope, meaning its hardware will grow old and out-of-date in the coming years. Without assistance, Hubble cant maintain its orbit forever, and eventually Earth's gravity will pull the telescope to a fiery death.

Provided by Popular Science

Just like an iPhone, the Hubble used to get an update every couple of years. From 1993 to 2002, the space agency sanctioned four servicing missions to the telescope, in which astronauts would replace old or degraded technology with newer optics and hardware. Originally a fifth servicing mission was scheduled for 2005, but in 2003, with the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, everything changed.

The disaster put an intense spotlight on all subsequent shuttle missions -- notably the importance of having a 'Plan B.' During trips to the International Space Station, astronauts could easily seek refuge aboard the station if something happened to the shuttle. But for trips to the Hubble, there was no place to hide. So if there was damage to the shuttle, the crew members would either die in space or die during reentry.

Provided by Popular Science

See original here:
Is NASA Going To Let The Hubble Telescope Burn Up?

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is awake and doing fine.

The spacecraft bound for Pluto roused itself from its latest hibernation on Saturday at noon PST. One and a half hours later, it sent a radio signal to Earth to confirm it had successfully turned itself back on.

The spacecraft is currently 2.9 billion miles from our planet, so even though the signal was traveling at the speed of light, it took 4 hours and 26 minutes for it to reach NASA's Deep Space Network in Canberra, Australia. Mission operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory confirmed that New Horizons was indeed in "active mode" at 6:53 p.m. PST.

Technically, this was routine, since the wake-up was a procedure that wed done many times before, said Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at APL in a statement. Symbolically, however, this is a big deal. It means the start of our pre-encounter operations.

New Horizons has spent the past nine years traveling through nearly 3 billion miles of space. For two thirds of that time it was in a state of half-sleep.A few of its instruments continued to collect data about the solar wind and dust particles in the interplanetary emptiness, and a beacon allowed scientists to track its movements through space.

NASA woke New Horizons up at least twice a year to check its instruments and practice maneuvers it will make around Pluto. After this wake-up, however, the spacecraft will not be going back to sleep. It will begin to make distant observations of Pluto on Jan. 15.

Considering that Pluto is right here in our solar system, scientists know remarkably little about it. It was first spotted in 1930, but it wasn't until the 1990s that astronomers started to realize that it was not alone in its distant orbit. Instead, it is part of a complex system of more than 1,000 bodies called the Kuiper belt.

To this day, experts are divided on whether Pluto can even be called a planet.

"The geophysical definition of a planet is that the object has enough mass that its gravity holds it in a perfect sphere," said HaroldWeaver, of Johns Hopkins and the principal project scientist on the mission. "Pluto is almost a perfect sphere, and on this mission we will find out if has enough mass that it deserves to be in the planet category."

Also, no onereally knows what it looks like. Neither of the Voyagers visited Pluto on their journey through the solar system. That sad pixelated picture above is the best image of Pluto and its moon Charon ever taken. It was taken by the Hubble telescope in 1994.

View original post here:
After a 3-billion-mile journey, a spacecraft closes in on Pluto

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is awake and doing fine.

The spacecraft bound for Pluto roused itself from its latest hibernation on Saturday at noon PST. One and a half hours later, it sent a radio signal to Earth to confirm it had successfully turned itself back on.

The spacecraft is currently 2.9 billion miles from our planet, so even though the signal was traveling at the speed of light, it took 4 hours and 26 minutes for it to reach NASA's Deep Space Network in Canberra, Australia. Mission operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory confirmed that New Horizons was indeed in "active mode" at 6:53 p.m. PST.

Technically, this was routine, since the wake-up was a procedure that wed done many times before, said Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at APL in a statement. Symbolically, however, this is a big deal. It means the start of our pre-encounter operations.

New Horizons has spent the past nine years traveling through nearly 3 billion miles of space. For two thirds of that time it was in a state of half-sleep.A few of its instruments continued to collect data about the solar wind and dust particles in the interplanetary emptiness, and a beacon allowed scientists to track its movements through space.

NASA woke New Horizons up at least twice a year to check its instruments and practice maneuvers it will make around Pluto. After this wake-up, however, the spacecraft will not be going back to sleep. It will begin to make distant observations of Pluto on Jan. 15.

Considering that Pluto is right here in our solar system, scientists know remarkably little about it. It was first spotted in 1930, but it wasn't until the 1990s that astronomers started to realize that it was not alone in its distant orbit. Instead, it is part of a complex system of more than 1,000 bodies called the Kuiper belt.

To this day, experts are divided on whether Pluto can even be called a planet.

"The geophysical definition of a planet is that the object has enough mass that its gravity holds it in a perfect sphere," said HaroldWeaver, of Johns Hopkins and the principal project scientist on the mission. "Pluto is almost a perfect sphere, and on this mission we will find out if has enough mass that it deserves to be in the planet category."

Also, no onereally knows what it looks like. Neither of the Voyagers visited Pluto on their journey through the solar system. That sad pixelated picture above is the best image of Pluto and its moon Charon ever taken. It was taken by the Hubble telescope in 1994.

Continued here:
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is awake and cruising toward Pluto