'SPACE' in News

February 02 - 07, 2012

How NASA Solved a 100 Million Dollar Problem for Five Bucks Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Feb 02, 2012 - A few years ago, back when the Constellation Program was still alive, NASA engineers discovered that the Ares I rocket had a crucial flaw, one that could have jeopardized the entire project. They panicked. They plotted. They steeled themselves for the hundreds of millions of dollars it was going to take to make things right. And then they found out how to fix it for the cost of an extra va ... more
SpaceX Test Fires Engine Prototype for Astronaut Escape System Kennedy Space Center FL (SPX) Feb 02, 2012 - One of NASA's industry partners, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), completed a full-duration, full-thrust firing of its new SuperDraco engine prototype at the company's Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas. The firing was in preparation for the ninth milestone to be completed under SpaceX's funded Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). "SpaceX ... more
Feb 13 set as new date for Europe's Vega rocket Paris (AFP) Feb 3, 2012 - The European Space Agency (ESA) said on Friday that the first launch of a long-awaited light rocket, Vega, which had been pencilled for February 9, would take place on February 13. Vega is being deployed at a new pad at ESA's space base at Kourou, French Guiana, to complement ESA's heavyweight Ariane 5 and the Russian-made medium launcher Soyuz. An ESA spokesman told AFP that the new dat ... more
How Do You Fight Fire in Space? San Diego CA (SPX) Feb 06, 2012 - Improving fire-fighting techniques in space and getting a better understanding of fuel combustion here on Earth are the focus of a series of experiments on the International Space Station, led by a professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. to A first round of experiments ran from March 2009 to December 2011. A second round kicked off in January and ... more
Engine Failure Behind Meridian Satellite Crash Voronezh, Russia (RIA Novosti) Feb 06, 2012 - The crash of Russia's Meridian communication satellite late last year was caused by the destruction of one of the Soyuz-2 carrier rocket's engines, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, said on Tuesday. "An inter-agency commission has concluded that the reason was an early opening of the combustion section of the rocket's third stage," Popovkin said during a meetin ... more
Surface of Mars an unlikely place for life after 600 million year drought London, UK (SPX) Feb 07, 2012 - Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet's surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analysing individual particles of Martian soil. Dr Tom Pike, from Imperial College London, will discuss the team's analysis at a European Space Agency (ESA) meeting on 7 February 2012. The ... more

Heavy Ions Killed Mars Probe Moscow, Russia (RIA Novosti) Feb 07, 2012 - Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt was lost because space radiation disrupted its computer system, a commission investigating the incident said on Friday. The investigation found no faults with the spacecraft's hardware, the commission said in a summary of its report, released on the website of the Federal Space Agency. Phobos-Grunt, Russia's first interplanetary probe in years, was to travel ... more

Blue Marble By Suomi NPP Greenbelt MD (SPX) Feb 07, 2012 - A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin. Suomi NPP is NA ... more

Do black holes help stars form? London, UK (SPX) Feb 07, 2012 - The centre of just about every galaxy is thought to host a black hole, some with masses of thousands of millions of Suns and consequently strong gravitational pulls that disrupt material around them. They had been thought to hinder the birth of stars, but now an international team of astronomers studying the nearby galaxy Centaurus A has found quite the opposite: a black hole that seems to be he ... more

Mission to Land on a Comet Huntsville AL (SPX) Feb 07, 2012 - Europe's Rosetta spacecraft is en route to intercept a comet- and to make history. In 2014, Rosetta will enter orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenkoand land a probe on it, two firsts. Rosetta's goal is to learn the primordial story a comet tells as it gloriously falls to pieces. Comets are primitive leftovers from our solar system's 'construction' about 4.5 billion years ago. ... more

Precision space maneuvers Berlin, Germany (SPX) Feb 06, 2012 - Spacecraft must operate with utmost precision when conducting landing maneuvers on other planets, or docking to a space station. To ensure they do not drift off course, imaging sensors collect a flood of data that are analyzed in real time. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology FIRST have engineered a system based on multicore technologie ... more

Manned Moon Shot Possible by 2020 Moscow, Russia (RIA Novosti) Feb 06, 2012 - A crewed mission to the moon is possible by 2020, the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Thursday. "Today science is ripe for using the moon. I think that by 2020 a man will land on the moon," Popovkin said. He also said Russia's previously announced cosmonaut recruitment drive will focus on preparing ... more

Elements of ExoPlanets Moffet Field CA (NASA) Feb 06, 2012 - Trace elements in stars may influence the evolution of habitable zones around them where life as we know it might dwell, scientists now find. Stars are made nearly entirely from hydrogen and helium gas. Still, traces of heavier elements - which astronomers call metals, even if they are not what one normally think of as metals - can be found in stars as well, either inherited from the remai ... more