By Linda HerridgeNASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center An artist concept depicts a greenhouse on the surface of Mars. Plants are growing with the help of red, blue and green LED light bars and a hydroponic cultivation approach. Image credit: SAIC NASA plant physiologist Ray Wheeler, Ph.D., and fictional astronaut Mark Watney from the movie "The Martian" have something in common — they are both botanists. But that's where the similarities end. "The Martian movie and book conveyed a lot of issues regarding growing food and surviving on a planet far from the Earth," Wheeler said. As NASA prepares the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for Exploration Mission-1, it's also turning its attention to exploring the possibilities of food crops grown in controlled environments for long-duration missions to deep-space destinations such as Mars. Wheeler and his colleagues, including plant scientists, have been studying ways to grow safe, fresh food crops efficiently off the Earth.
Dr. The hatches between Dragon and station were opened at 2:27 p.m. EDT Wednesday, July 20. The crew entered to document the interior and will begin unloading cargo this afternoon. The spacecraft delivered nearly 5,000 pounds of science, hardware and supplies, including instruments to perform the first-ever DNA sequencing in space, and the first of two identical international docking adapters (IDA). The IDAs will provide a means for commercial spacecraft to dock to the station in the near future as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Dragon is scheduled to depart the space station Aug. 29 when it will return critical science research back to Earth.
It is the second cargo spacecraft to arrive on station this week. On Monday, July 18, a Russian ISS Progress 64 cargo craft docked to the Pirs docking compartment of the space station at 8:22 p.m., where it will remain for about six months. Human technology has advanced significantly over the past 5,000 years, and the Earth bears the scars to prove it.
We've altered the landscape, the climate and the biological diversity. We've erected skyscrapers for the living and colossal tombs for the dead. Perhaps most important, we've learned to harness a portion of the planet's energy, but we still thirst for so much more power. This insatiable appetite for energy will continue to chart the course of human civilization in the 5,000 years to come. As a result, it will also dictate what Earth will look like in A.D. 7010. In 1964, Russian astrophysicist Nicolai Kardashev theorized that a civilization's technical advancement directly correlates to the amount of energy its citizens can manipulate. Along these lines, he defined three classifications for advanced civilizations in the galaxy: Cosmologists use this Kardashev Scale to predict the technical advancement of future and alien civilizations.
AIM at Didymos ESA’s proposed Asteroid Impact Mission and its twin CubeSats, with its microlander in place on the smaller of the two Didymos asteroids. ESA performs a wide variety of asteroid research, and is participating in international Asteroid Day tomorrow. AIM is proposed for launch in 2020 to be in place around Didymos in late 2022 when the NASA DART spacecraft impacts. As well as demonstrating key deep-space technologies and studying Didymoon in unprecedented detail, the mission will be ideally placed to document the effect of the impact on the asteroid body and its orbital path. AIM and DART together form the international Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA).
Asteroid Day is an annual global movement to increase public awareness of potential asteroid impacts with Earth, and the importance of guarding against them. It is held each year on 30 June, the anniversary of the largest impact in recent history, the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia. Credits: ESA - ScienceOffice.org. Aurora Australis ESA astronaut Tim Peake posted this stunning image on his social media channels, commenting: "Station passed through magnificent aurora Australis last night. " Tim is set to return to Earth on 18 June 2016, bringing his six-month Principia mission to the ISS to an end.
During his stay he performed more than 30 scientific experiments for ESA and taking part in numerous others from ESA’s international partners. ESA and the UK Space Agency have partnered to develop many exciting educational activities around the Principia mission, aimed at sparking the interest of young children in science and space. Follow Tim Peake via timpeake.esa.int. More about the Principia mission: More photos from Tim on his flickr photostream: Credits: ESA/NASA. Description This multicoloured swirl of yellow and blue shows a prominent ring of gas near the North Celestial Pole. The pole appears to be fixed in place, while the rest of the night sky slowly circles around it because of Earth’s rotation. This image comes courtesy of ESA’s Planck satellite, which spent years mapping the entire sky in exquisite detail between 2009 and 2013.The North Celestial Loop lies over 325 light-years away from us towards the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear).
It is composed of dust and neutral hydrogen blown and sculpted into an expanding shell. The first two images above show the central portions of galaxy M82 prior to the supernova explosion, while the right image shows Supernova SN2014J taken by the FLITECAM instrument on the SOFIA observatory on Feb. 20. Credits: NASA/SOFIA/FLITECAM team / Sachindev Shenoy On four flights in late February, NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) focused on an explosion known as a supernova that obliterated the remains of a star about the mass of the sun in the Messier 82 galaxy (M82). Located 11 million light years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major, the exploding star is named Supernova (SN) 2014J.
NASA called upon SOFIA to view the supernova on Feb. 18, 20, 24 and 26 using the converted jetliner's 2.5-meter diameter telescope that is optimized for collecting radiation at infrared wavelengths. Supernova 2014J is a Type 1a supernova, known to astronomers as a "standard candle. " The power output of a standard candle is well-known.
Nicholas A. A mysterious ring of microwaves Fifty years ago, astronomers discovered a mystery. They called it Loop I. Today, we still have not fully resolved the mystery of how this giant celestial structure formed but we do now have the best image of it, thanks to ESA’s Planck satellite. Loop I is a nearly circular formation that covers one third of the sky. In reality, it is probably a spherical ‘bubble’ that stretches to more than 100º across, making it wider than 200 full Moons. Its absolute size, however, is extremely uncertain because astronomers do not know how close it is to us: estimates to the centre of the bubble vary from 400 light-years to 25 000 light-years. What they do know is that the structure shows up in many different wavelengths, from radio waves to gamma rays.
Our eyes are not sensitive to this information in the visible light, where we perceive only the intensity and colour. Loop I is most visible in the sky’s northern hemisphere. Credits: ESA and the Planck Collaboration. Inicio de sesión. Yahoo - Inicio de sesión. §. Galileo liftoff And yet it moves: 14 Galileo satellites now in orbit 24 May 2016 Named for the astronomer who pinpointed Earth’s true position in the Solar System, the Galileo satellite navigation system that will help Europe find its way in the 21st century now has 14 satellites in orbit after today’s double launch. Galileos 13 and 14 lifted off together at 08:48 GMT (10:48 CEST, 05:48 local time) atop a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana. This seventh Galileo launch went by the book: the first three Soyuz stages placed the satellites safely into low orbit, after which their Fregat upper stage hauled them the rest of the way into their target medium-altitude orbit.
The twin Galileos were deployed into orbit close to 23 522 km altitude, at 3 hours and 48 minutes after liftoff. Galileo satellites atop Soyuz “Today’s textbook launch has added two more satellites to what has become Europe’s largest satellite constellation,” commented Jan Woerner, Director General of ESA. Galileos on dispenser. Astronaut postures – fashion gestures 24 May 2016 The Politecnico di Milano is one of five European design schools participating in Couture in Orbit, ESA’s project to look at the future of fashion using space materials and technology. Professor Annalisa Dominoni of their Design department gives an overview of the school’s role in the event. Working with Couture in Orbit was a great challenge for us because we explored fashion in the age of technology to understand better how we can be more conscious of the transformation that technology brings.
Space innovations will have a strong influence on how people behave and perform in the future. My students started proposing ideas combining aesthetic values with functional aspects considering new scenarios in our society and its needs. I was awarded a PhD in industrial design looking at extreme environments and establishing the role of design in space. Couture in Orbit fashion shoot. Yahoo - Inicio de sesión. NASA (@NASA) | Twitter. The Search for Alien Earths - How Coronagraphs Find Hidden Planets. The Really Big Picture: Things We Know About the Universe, and How We Know Them. How the Universe works - Strangest Things Found in Deep Space Exploration (Full Documentary Films) KEPLER-186F Planet For ALIEN 2014 - Documentary.
Space Solutions conference: bringing space to Earth The Netherlands by night 18 May 2016 A major European space conference is taking place in the Netherlands at the end of this month, highlighting the vital role that space technology plays in all our lives, and helping European industry to explore its business potential. The European Space Solutions conference will take place at the World Forum Convention Centre from 30 May to 3 June.
Following the theme of Bringing Space to Earth, the conference will include discussions on space for economic growth, sessions on how space can benefit businesses across different sectors and an exhibition showcasing more than 50 innovative space technologies. Space systems form an invisible – but increasingly indispensable – infrastructure in everyday life, enabling environmental monitoring of our air, land and seas, instantaneous worldwide communications and precision navigation and timing. Europe’s Galileo satnav system ESA at the Space Solutions conference. Alexander Gerst to be Space Station commander 18 May 2016 ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst has been assigned a new mission to the International Space Station, where he will fulfil the role of commander during the second part of his six-month mission in 2018.
The news was announced today in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel by ESA Director General Jan Woerner at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. Alexander worked on the Station for six months on his Blue Dot mission in 2014. The German astronaut commented: “I am humbled by receiving the honour to command the International Space Station. This international sign of trust reflects ESA's reliability as a cooperation partner, and was made possible by the fantastic work of my European colleagues on their previous missions. ESA astronaut Tim Peake using Mares in space Eleven European countries participate in the Station through ESA together with USA, Russia, Japan and Canada. Alexander during spacewalk. §. Models of Proba-3 designs The design evolution of ESA’s Proba-3 double satellite is shown by this trio of 3D-printed models, each pair – from left to right – produced after successive development milestones.
“These paired models, 3D printed in plastic, were not made for show,” explains Agnes Mestreau-Garreau, ESA’s project manager. “Instead, they’re used almost daily. Because Proba-3 will be the first precision formation-flying mission – with the two satellites flying in tandem– these models help the team to visualise their orientation, as well as to explain the mission easily to people. So the models have ended up somewhat battered as a result. “The first model set was printed after our System Requirements Review, followed by our Preliminary Design Review and now Mission Consolidation Milestone – with consequent changes in mission mass, volume and design details. The challenge is in keeping the satellites safely controlled and correctly positioned relative to each other. Credits: ESA–G. The fourth SpaceX cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract is scheduled to launch Saturday, Sept. 20, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The one-day adjustment in the launch date was made to accommodate preparations of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and was coordinated with the station’s partners and managers. The company's Falcon 9 rocket, carrying its Dragon cargo spacecraft loaded with more than 5,000 pounds of scientific experiments and supplies, will lift off at 2:16 a.m. EDT. NASA Television coverage of the launch begins at 1:15 a.m. If for any reason the launch is postponed, the next launch opportunity is Sunday, Sept. 21 at approximately 1:53 a.m. The mission, designated SpaceX CRS-4, is the fourth of 12 SpaceX flights NASA contracted with the company to resupply the space station.
-end- The series of images shows the journey the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft from its launch at 4:10 p.m. EDT on Tuesday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, to solar array deployment. Credits: NASA TV Research that will help prepare NASA astronauts and robotic explorers for future missions to Mars is among the two tons of cargo now on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft.
The spacecraft launched on a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:10 p.m. EDT Tuesday, April 14 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. “Five years ago this week, President Obama toured the same SpaceX launch pad used today to send supplies, research and technology development to the ISS,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
“Back then, SpaceX hadn’t even made its first orbital flight. A study of potential methods for counteracting cell damage that occurs in a microgravity environment -end- Space in Videos - 2016 - 04 - Red sprites and blue jets. §. NASA’s SDO Sees Tangled Connections. Space Station Live: Everything’s Coming up Veggie. Gmail - Free Storage and Email from Google.