NASA Phoenix Mars Lander has run out of Power

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NASA reports that the Phoenix Mars Lander has stopped communicating as it has run out of power. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot's arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander's instruments.

NASA will be listening carefully during the next few weeks to hear if Phoenix revives and phones home again. Read more

Posted on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:29:58 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

NASA Awards Contract for New Space Suit

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NASA announced yesterday that it had awarded a contract to Oceaneering International Inc for the design, development, and production of a new space suit system for manned space missions. The contract is a cost-plus-award-fee for a performance period from June 2008 to September 2014 with a value of $183.8 million.

The test period will cover everything from the development and testing to the first flight of the new suit, NASA says that suits and support system will be needed for as many as four astronauts on moon voyages and as many as six for the ISS. Read more

Posted on Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:17:42 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

NASA Phoenix Mars Lander lands tonight

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The NASA Phoenix Mars Lander is on track to land on the red planet tonight at around 8pm EST.

Update:
Phoenix has landed and sent first photos from Mars

The NASA TV online video channel already starts the live coverage of the Phoenix landing at 6pm EST. Read more

Posted on Sun, 25 May 2008 12:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

NASA Starts Artifact Loan Program with Shuttle Tires

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NASA announced a new artifact loan program today that will kick off with the chance for organizations that don’t normally work with NASA to get artifacts on a loan basis. The first loan item will be tires from the main landing gear of the space shuttle fleet. Some of the tires available for loan were even flown on missions.

NASA says that the tires will be made available to proposing organizations best meeting the agency’s goals of education and outreach. NASA has a form on its website for interested organizations to apply for a loan. Read more

Posted on Thu, 8 May 2008 10:27:29 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Google Founders can land on NASA Airport

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The Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin struck a deal with NASA to be able to land and park their wide-body Boeing 767-200 and two Gulfstream Vs jets.

No private planes are generally allowed to land at Moffett Field, an airport run by NASA. If you know Silicon Valley, than you know how close the location of Moffett Field airport is to the Google head quarters. It is ideal for the apparently very jet-set Google founders. Read more

Posted on Thu, 13 Sep 2007 01:40:03 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

NASA Testing Robots in Artic Circle for Moon Mission

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NASA announced today that they have two robots surveying a rocky, isolated polar desert inside a crater in the Artic Circle. The point of the test mission is to learn how robots could be used in potential outposts on the moon or Mars.

The two robots are known as K10 Black and K10 Red; both carry 3-D laser scanners and ground penetrating radar. The robots and the tea arrived at the crater in the Artic on July 12 and are scheduled to test until July 31. This Artic Circle crater was chosen because of its geological similarity to the Shackleton Crater on the South Pole of the moon. Read more

Posted on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:02:51 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

NASA James Webb Space Telescope replaces Hubble

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NASA plans to replace the Hubble telescope with the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in June of 2013.

The Hubble telescope was launched in 1990. The new $4.5bn JWST telescope will take up a position some 1.5 million km (930,000 miles) from Earth and will have with 24m length, 12m height and a mirror with a 6.5 in diameter a size that is 3 times of Hubble. Read more

Posted on Fri, 11 May 2007 06:10:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Surgical Robot Raven goes under-water with NASA

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This week Raven, the mobile surgical robot developed by the University of Washington, leaves for the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

For 12 days the Raven will be put through its paces in an underwater capsule that mimics conditions in a space shuttle. Surgeons back in Seattle will guide its movements. The 12th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) test will take place May 7 to 18 off the coast of Florida.
Read more

Posted on Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:37:30 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

NASA Needs to Get back on the Moon to Shoot new Film

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Now we know the real reason why NASA is going to return humans to the moon again. They lost (not lost, misplaced) the original video footage of the first landing on the moon.

NASA aknowledged this week that they can not find 13,000 (!!) original tapes of the historic Apollo moon missions. The space agency thinks that they are somewhere at the Goddard Space Flight Center.
The resolution of the original video transmission is supposed to be much better than the footage we all have seen on TV.
NASA is now conducting an official search for the tapes over the next 6 month. Read more

Posted on Wed, 16 Aug 2006 01:01:25 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Star Trek Captain Explains NASA Return To Flight Shuttle Mission

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About another 11 hours until the NASA space shuttle is taking off into space again. To pass the time you can explore and listen to Star Trek Captain Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), who is leading through a very nicely made Flash presentation.

The NASA Return To Flight Flash feature presents the crew, explains the shuttle and goes over the mission.
Watch the flash feature on this NASA site (upper right corner).

Read more

Posted on Wed, 13 Jul 2005 03:30:59 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

NASA Deep Impact has Impact with Comet

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NASA Deep Impact is a success. They hit the comet just before 11 p.m. PDT on Sunday the 3rd.

Images of the impact are published on NASA's site as I write this.
I cannot get the NASA TV stream to work. I guess the server is already overloaded.

Read more

Posted on Mon, 4 Jul 2005 01:36:49 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

NASA develops Skin for Robots

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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center works on a sensor-embedded skin for robots.

The first robot skins are supposed to include more than 1,000 infrared sensors that would detect an object, and send the information to the robot software.
NASA Scientist Vladimir Lumelsky says: "Humans can survive without sight, but they can’t survive without tactile sensing. The skin is the biggest organ in our body. It's nothing more than a huge sensor."
More details on NASA. First seen on Science Daily.

Read more

Posted on Thu, 9 Jun 2005 10:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr