Space News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.– KENNEDY SPACE CENTER – Space Shuttle astronauts Shannon Lucid and Jerry Ross joined an elite group of American space heroes Saturday.  They were inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame during a ceremony at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The ceremony was held in the new Space Shuttle Atlantisattraction at the Visitor Complex. Atlantis carried Lucid ...

SpaceX set to launch rocket next Saturday   CAPE CANAVERAL —  Another rocket launch is a week away. SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 rocket next Saturday. The rocket will be carrying six communications satellites for Orbcomm, a New Jersey-based company. The satellites are small, and they provide two-way data messaging services. The window for next Saturday’s launch is between ...

Surface of Titan Sea is mirror smooth, Stanford scientists find Stanford CA (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 New radar measurements of an enormous sea on Titan offer insights into the weather patterns and landscape composition of the Saturnian moon. The measurements, made in 2013 by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, reveal that the surface of Ligeia Mare, Titan’s second largest sea, possesses a ...

Could Alien Life Cope with a Hotter, Brighter Star? Moffett Field CA (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 The stars in the night sky shine in myriad hues and brightnesses-piercing blues, clean whites, smoldering crimsons. Every star has a different mass, the basic characteristic that determines its size, lifespan, light output and temperature (which we discern as a particular color). Yet when ...

DMSP Satellite Encapsulated For Upcoming Launch Vandenberg AFB CA (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 A Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellite built by Lockheed Martin has been encapsulated into its payload fairing in preparation for an April 3 liftoff. The launch will take place aboard an Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 3 East at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.DMSP ...

Mars One building simulated colony to vet potential colonists Mars One is a a private, Netherlands-based push to realize a human colony on the red planet by 2025. In an email statement to Popular Science Thursday, Mars One announced plans to build a simulated colony here on Earth to vet astronauts and make sure they can withstand the cramped and ...

SpaceX Confirms Cargo Mission Launch | You can catch the Livestream here on SpaceCoast Daily.com. NASA TV also will air a prelaunch news conference at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 29 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A 2 p.m. briefing on the science and technology cargo being … By SpaceCoastDaily.com on Sun, 23 Mar 2014 21:21:43 -0700

NASA Spacecraft Reveal New “Zebra Stripes” Structure in Earth’s Inner Radiation Belt Laurel MD (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 Scientists have discovered a new, persistent structure in Earth’s inner radiation belt using data from the twin NASA Van Allen Probes spacecraft. Most surprisingly, this structure is produced by the slow rotation of Earth, previously considered incapable of affecting the motion of ...

Dramatic new portrait helps define Milky Way’s shape and contents Madison WI (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 Using more than 2 million images collected by NASA’s orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, a team of Wisconsin scientists has stitched together a dramatic 360 degree portrait of the Milky Way, providing new details of our galaxy’s structure and contents. The new composite picture, using ...

Fierce 2012 magnetic storm barely missed Earth Fierce 2012 magnetic storm barely missed Earth by Staff Writers Berkeley CA (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 This image captured on July 23, 2012, at 12:24 a.m. EDT, shows a coronal mass ejection that left the sun at the unusually fast speeds of over 1,800 miles per second. Image courtesy NASA/STEREO. Earth dodged a ...

The Amazing Anatomy of James Webb Space Telescope Mirrors Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 When you think of a mirror, there really isn’t that much needed to describe it, but when you look at a mirror that will fly aboard NASA’s next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, there’s a lot to the anatomy of a mirror. NASA’s Webb telescope includes ...

NASA Extends Lockheed Martin Contract to Support ISS Houston TX (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently awarded Lockheed Martin a one-year contract extension on the Cargo Mission Contract 2 valued at $22 million. The extension ensures continuation of processing services, including support planning, coordination, preparation and packing of standardized containers for cargo delivery to ...

NASA’s Van Allen Probes Reveal Zebra Stripes in Space Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 Scientists have discovered a new, persistent structure in one of two radiation belts surrounding Earth. NASA’s twin Van Allen Probes spacecraft have shown that high-energy electrons in the inner radiation belt display a persistent pattern that resembles slanted zebra stripes. Surprisingly, this structure is produced ...

New hypothesis explains Earth’s continued habitability Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 Researchers from USC and Nanjing University in China have documented evidence suggesting that part of the reason that the Earth has become neither sweltering like Venus nor frigid like Mars lies with a built-in atmospheric carbon dioxide regulator – the geologic cycles that churn up the planet’s ...

NRL Researchers Detect Water Around a Hot Jupiter Washington DC (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) are part of a research team that has detected water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system. The team, including scientists from California Institute of Technology, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, and ...

Tracking endangered leatherback sea turtles by satellite, key habitats identified Amherst MA (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 A first-of-its-kind satellite tagging study of migrating New England leatherback turtles in the North Atlantic offers a greatly improved understanding of their seasonal high-use habitats, diving activity and response to key ocean and environmental features in relation to their search behavior. Leatherbacks are considered ...

NJIT physicist helps to discover a new structure in Earth’s radiation belt Newark, NJ (SPX) Mar 21, 2014 An NJIT physicist is a collaborator in the discovery of a new structure in Earth’s inner radiation belt – a zebra-striped structure of highly energized electrons that could endanger humans in space and also damage low-earth navigation and communication satellites. And surprisingly, ...

Space Sunflower May Help Snap Pictures of Planets Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 21, 2014 A spacecraft that looks like a giant sunflower might one day be used to acquire images of Earth-like rocky planets around nearby stars. The prototype deployable structure, called a starshade, is being developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The hunt is on for ...

TrepHub exploring how to grow food on Mars, other NASA challanges By Jerry Hume, Brevard County Reporter Last Updated: Sunday, April 13, 2014, 11:22 AM MELBOURNE — NASA is relying on people around the world this weekend to help them solve some of the agency’s biggest challenges. It’s called the International Space Apps Challenge 2014. NASA has come up with 45 ...

NASA: SpaceX rocket launch a go for Monday Last Updated: Sunday, April 13, 2014, 12:36 PM KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Monday’s launch of a SpaceX rocket is a go despite a computer problem at the International Space Station, NASA officials said Sunday. SpaceX is supposed to launch the unmanned Dragon capsule at 4:58 p.m. Monday from Cape Canaveral. It contains nearly ...