Saturday, September 30, 2006 10:56:48 PM
space, nasa, Technology
...and want to shape our future? Then I believe NASA has the answer: Through their Centennial Challenges program, they invite private teams to compete in several prize contests to boost innovation, which is really cool. All challenges are aimed at solving a "real", hands-on problem.
For example: Through the Xprize Foundation, NASA is sponsoring a
lunar lander challenge; create a reliable, cost-effective lunar lander system, capable of lifting off from the lunar surface, reach lunar orbit and then land again.
In the Beam Power Challenge, NASA is awarding $200 000 to the team which can create the best machine capable of climbing a tether, powered by a beam of light, while carrying a payload mass. Otherwise known as a
space elevator, the challenge is run by a non-profit organization.
Space exploration is hard, but by inviting everyone to come up with creative solutions to specific problems, we (the earthlings
) have a better way of succeeding. These challenges are perfect for technical universities around the globe.
Enough talk, now, grab your tools, and
start building cool stuff.
Saturday, September 23, 2006 5:08:03 PM
space, Jaxa, norway
The Japanese performed a flawless launch of the Solar-B satellite last night, and we´re all currently awaiting the first telemetry signals from Solar-B to the satellite receiving station at Svalbard,
SvalSat. The use of SvalSat is Norway´s contribution to the project.
Solar-B is a space based solar telescope, which can observe features on the sun 175 km wide. According to the Norwegian Space Center, that´s like reading a car sign 50 km away.
Oh, and the Solar-B got a new name: Hinode, which means sunrise in Japanese.
Friday, September 22, 2006 12:18:12 PM
space, Jaxa
Japan is launching their Solar-B satellite, a space-based solar observatory. The Solar-B project aims to understand the origin and consequences of various active phenomena which take place in the solar corona.
The launch is planned for September 23rd (my birthday, btw) from Uchinoura Space Center.
I made my little contribution to the project with
this illustration, commisioned by the Norwegian Space Center.
Friday, September 22, 2006 12:00:12 PM
nasa, esa, Jaxa, space
Phew! The shuttle Atlantis made it safely back down to Earth again, which means that the building of the
space station will continue in the years to come.
Great news for Europe and Japan, which are eagerly awaiting the shuttle to lift up the European
Columbus laboratory and the
Japanese Experiment Module "Kibo".
The ISS is about half-way through the construction plan, and even though NASA is about to cancel their science operations onboard ISS for about a year to save money, it's important for the rest of the spacefaring nations that the station is completed.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 4:51:27 PM
nasa, space
That is how far (in kilometers) the Voyager 1 space probe is from the sun right now.
According to Dr. Ed Stone, the probe was "built to last".
Flying through space for the last thirty years, I believe it will outlive its creators, and it is a monument to their craftmanship and ingenuity.
Voyager 1 captured the famous "
a pale blue dot"-photo, in February 1990. It pointed its camera back towards Earth from about 6 billion kilometers away.
Monday, August 14, 2006 9:40:00 PM
space
Astronomers around the world are gathering in Prague to once and for all decide whether or not Pluto is to be classified as a planet. A trivial question at first glance perhaps, but it´s proving to be a major problem: there hasn´t been a precise definition of what a "planet" is, or should be.
The science community is divided in to two camps, and it appears to be a stalemate. Three thousand astronomers are now debating, arguing and fighting in the Czech capital and hopefully they´ll reach a conclusion by next Friday.
My tip? Flip a coin. :-)
International Astronomical Union
Friday, August 11, 2006 11:37:37 AM
esa, space, moon
The ESA spacecraft SMART-1, designed to test new technology, is about to end its mission in a quite spectacular way: it will crash land on the moon.
SMART-1, orbiting the moon since November 2004, will meet its fate in an area of the moon called "Lake of Excellence". Scientists hope that the dust ejected by the impact will give clues to physical and chemical parameters of the lunar surface.
The event is set to occur September 3, 05:41 UTC.
Sunday, April 23, 2006 8:15:29 PM
space, nasa, CNES, Earth
Sitting on top of this Delta II launch vehicle are the two satellites CALIPSO and CloudSat. They are designed to reveal the secrets of clouds and aerosols.
CloudSat is carrying a highly sensitive cloud-profiling radar, and CALIPSO will be using a
lidar instrument. Providing that everything goes well during launch, the two satellites will be flying in a circular polar orbit, 15 seconds apart. The mission is a collaboration between France and US.
CALIPSO and CloudSat will join the
A-train constellation of satellites:
Aura,
PARASOL,
CALIPSO,
CloudSat,
Aqua and
OCO, flying relatively close and each with it´s specialized task.
Misson website @ NASA.CALIPSO website @ CNES (France).CloudSat mission pages @ NASA.CloudSat mission pages @ CSU.
Saturday, April 22, 2006 5:42:08 PM
esa, world
The European satellite ERS-2 has located large rivers the size of the Thames running for houndreds of miles beneath the ice. Scientists discovered the rivers by chance when they looked at small changes in elevation, using ERS-2 InSAR interferometry.
ESA article.Now, what if Google Earth could incorporate such elevation data, then we all could search for hidden rivers, buried treasures and ancient cities (
like these guys did).
For scientists studying other worlds, such as Mars or Titan, this means they´ve got a new technique on their hands, searching for areas which might contain life.
Thursday, April 20, 2006 9:47:52 PM
space, arianespace
Arianespace published an interesting photo of the Ariane 5 "brain" unit. It´s a large, ring-like shape, and doesn´t resemble good ol´
HAL 9000 at all. It contains the flight control unit, telemetry system, power distribution system and more.
Here´s a close-up. This particular brain will fly in May, lifting the Satmex 6 and THAICOM 5 satellites into orbit.
Friday, April 14, 2006 3:36:52 PM
esa, venus, space
Venus Express has returned the first ever photos from Venus´south pole. Still over 200 000 kilometers away from Venus, the Venus Express space craft is spiraling down to a much closer orbit which will have a low point 250 km above Venus and a high point of about 66 000 km.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 1:44:44 PM
esa, venus, space
From ESA´s home page: "This morning, at the end of a 153-day and 400-million km cruise into the inner Solar System beginning with its launch on 9 November 2005, ESA’s Venus Express space probe fired its main engine at 09:17 CEST for a 50-minute burn, which brought it into orbit around Venus."
Thumbs up to the mission team. Halley´s Comet, Titan, Mars, Moon, Venus... the list of celestial bodies visited by a robotic space craft from Europe just keeps on growing.
ESA press release
Saturday, April 8, 2006 2:18:11 PM
mars, nasa, space
The NASA spacecraft heading for Pluto, New Horizons, has just crossed the orbit of Mars, according to mission control, 78 days after launch from Earth.
The craft is now speeding away from the Sun at 21 kilometers per second, which is 75 600 kilometer per hour!
Still, it won´t reach Pluto until 2015.
Friday, April 7, 2006 7:48:09 AM
opera
Just to blow off a little steam: Using Opera on a daily basis I've really gotten to hate the CTRL+B key combination. A lot of the times when I'm performing a cut-n-paste operation, CTRL+C and then CTRL-V, I sometimes find that I miss the "v" and hit the "b" instead, making Opera pop-up with a help-screen. And, for some unknown reason, Opera also erases my browse history for the active window at the same time(not always). Which means that I can't go back to continue my work.
Not anymore, though, the hateful keyboard combination has now been erased from my keyboard preferences. Anyone else with the same problem out there, or is it just me?
Well, anyway, back to work...
Thursday, April 6, 2006 6:30:05 PM
venus, esa, space
The European space craft Venus Express will reach its target within few days. After the stunning success with Mars Express and Huygens everyone´s eyes, including mine, will follow the event closely. The plan for Venus Orbital Insertion at April 11 goes like this:
- 07:17 UTC Main engine burn begins.
- 07:45 to 07:55 Loss of radio contact as the space craft disappears behind the far side of Venus.
- 08:07 UTC Main engine burn ends.
- 09:07 UTC After VOI, Venus Express will deploy an X-band antenna and transmitt housekeeping data.
- 09:30 UTC Press conference from ESA.
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 10:27:35 AM
aurora
Being webmaster at northern-lights.no, one of my chores is to select the monthly winner in our auroral photo contest. This months winner is Robert Shane Postma from Canada with his photo "Brilliant Night".
What impresses me most with this photo is the fact that it was only a two second exposure, which indicates a very powerful aurora. Usually you would need 10 - 15 seconds to gather enough light.
See the photo herenorthern-lights.no
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 9:22:27 AM
space, norway
The Norwegian Technical University in Trondheim is preparing to grow plants in space. The chosen plant is Arabidopsis thaliana, and it will grow for 50 - 60 days. The experiment is called MULTIGEN and will be transported to the International Space Station in March 2007.
The greenhouse, called EMCS (European Modular Cultivation System), is developed by EADS and Norwegian company Prototech. Set to launch with the space shuttle Discovery (STS-121), the EMCS is to be placed inside the Destiny module at the International Space Station.
All experiments conducted with the EMCS will be monitored and controlled from the control center in Trondheim, Norway.
N-USOC
Thursday, March 30, 2006 6:39:18 AM
sun
Here's a photo of yesterdays solar eclipse as seen from the International Space Station.
The photo shows the shadow of the moon covering parts of Earth.
The Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, Norway, travelled to Turkey and sent back
these photos.
Norway didn't experience a full solar eclipse this time, apparently that won't happen until the year 2097. I'll be 122 years by then!
Sunday, March 26, 2006 4:23:44 PM
space, SpaceX, Falcon
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX is assuring that his team will find out what caused the mishap with the first Falcon 1 launch. It appears to be due to an unknown fuel leak causing a fire which shut down the first stage main engine 29 seconds after launch, causing the vehicle to splash down in the Pacific.
Read more details at SpaceX.Thankfully, Elon Musk knows that rocketry is a difficult business and is determined to make the Falcon 1 a reliable and cost-effective vehicle. Well, thumbs up from me, Elon, the industry need people like you.
Sunday, March 26, 2006 9:06:32 AM
space, Technology
Sitting on top of an Terrier-Orion configuration, the HyShot III experiment was launched last night. HyShot is a project by The University of Queensland, Australia, building a scramjet-engine for suborbital, hypersonic (mach 7+) vehicles. Here´s a quick explanation of yesterday´s experiment:
"The HyShot Program uses a two stage Terrier-Orion Mk70 rocket to boost the payload and the empty Orion motor (the Orion motor remains attached to the payload) to an apogee of approximately 330km. As the spent motor and its attached payload falls back to Earth, they gather speed. The trajectory is designed so that between 35km and 23km, they are travelling at Mach 7.6. It is during this part of the trajectory that the measurements of supersonic combustion are made." (
Link to the project)
The launch occured from Woomera, a sounding rocket launch facility in the middle of the Australian desert.
My Opera
