NASA MISSION UPDATES
On Saturday, Nov. 20, FASTSAT made contact with ground stations at Svalbard, Norway and Kodiak, Alaska, and received commands from and communicated with mission controllers at the small satellite command center located at the Huntsville Operations and Science Control Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The satellite continues to function nominally as the commissioning phase of the mission continues.
NanoSail-D (Credit: NASA)
Hams Invited to Listen for New Satellites
ARRL Press Release
Five research satellites were carried to orbit Friday evening aboard a Minotaur V rocket from Kodiak Island, Alaska. All the satellites use Amateur Radio frequencies and hams have been invited to participate in their missions by monitoring and collecting data.
The FASTRACs are two relatively small “nanosatellites†built by students at the University of Texas-Austin. They enter orbit as a single spacecraft, but then separate into FASTRAC 1, known as “Sara Lily,†and FASTRAC 2, referred to as “Emma.†Both satellites use 1200 or 9600 baud AX.25 digital communication and transmit at 1 W output, so they should be receivable with omnidirectional VHF or UHF antennas and decodable by ordinary packet radio hardware and software.
NASA MISSION UPDATE Nov. 19, 2010 At yesterday’s Program Requirements Control Board, or PRCB, the Space Shuttle Program clearly identified the analysis and repairs that are required to safely launch shuttle Discovery on its STS-133 mission. This analysis will be reviewed at a special PRCB on Wednesday, Nov. 24. Pending a successful review of the flight rationale at that meeting, a Launch Status Briefing would be held with senior NASA […]
Caption: We’ve been very quiet lately as we are exceptionally busy with a new rocket vehicle. Here is the flame bucket/ water deluge/ 7hp bidet that we have been building to use in “hold down” testing. One of our interns, Nadir, is shown performing some data gathering of the flow characteristics.
Soyuz rocket
NASA MISSION UPDATE
NASA Television will air the Thanksgiving Day return to Earth of three crew members from the International Space Station and the preparation, launch and docking of the newest trio of station residents three weeks later.
Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA Expedition 25 Commander Doug Wheelock and NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker are scheduled to land in the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft on the northern steppe of Kazakhstan on Nov. 25 (Nov. 26 local time).
On Dec. 15, Soyuz Commander Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA Flight Engineer Cady Coleman and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Paolo Nespoli will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft (Dec. 16 Baikonur time). They will join NASA Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly and Russian Flight Engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, who have been aboard the station since early October.
Wheelock will hand over command of the station to Kelly at 3 p.m. CST on Nov. 24.
MDA PRESS RELEASE
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (TSX: MDA), a provider of essential information solutions, announced today that it has signed an $11.5 Million (CAD) contract with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) for the design, development, build and test of advanced technology solutions under CSA’s Exploration Surface Mobility Program.
During the International Academy of Astronautics Summit on Wednesday, Roscosmos Head Anatoly Perminov laid out Russia’s ambitious plans for Solar System exploration, which includes a sample return from Phobos and the Moon as well as landings on the planet Mercury and Jupiter’s moon Europa. The meeting, which was aimed at deepening international cooperation in space, was attended by 27 heads of space agencies.
The Russian space agency and ITAR-TASS reported on Perminov’s comments, which also included remarks about nuclear propulsion, climate change monitoring, asteroid missions, space situational awareness, and the International Space Station.
Roscosmos and NASA Negotiate Missions to Distant Space Roscosmos PAO Space agencies of Russia and US, Roscosmos and NASA, discuss space missions to distant space, Roscosmos Head Anatoly Perminov stated at the summit of the space agency heads held under the aegis of International Academy of Astronautics in Washington. Perminov and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who both lead Space Cooperation Working Group in the framework of the Russian-US President Commission, […]
A P3 Navy aircraft with Hangar One at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. (Copyright 2009: Douglas Messier)
NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER
Synthetic Biology Innovation Laboratory
NASA Ames Research Center has an established track record in biotechnology and fundamental biology research, with applications in astrobiology, radiation biology, biosensors, biofuels, bionanotechnology, human health, and bioregenerative life support. Ames is seeking to infuse synthetic biology into these and other applications.
Two positions are available for Research Fellows in the newly established Synthetic Biology Innovation Laboratory, a cross-disciplinary research group formed to create new technologies that meet NASA needs.
The Haughton impact crater site on Devon Island, High Arctic, is one of the most Mars-like places on Earth. Since 1997, the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) has been conducting science and exploration research at the site, and established the HMP Research Station, now the largest privately operated polar research station in the world. Geology and astrobiology investigations have led to the formulation of the “Mars, Always Cold, Sometimes Wet” Model. Dr. […]
NanoSail-D (Credit: NASA)
Planetary Society Statement
by Louis D. Friedman
NASA’s Nanosail-D is scheduled to launch on Friday — and we wish them well. Nanosail is an innovative development by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight and Ames Research Centers, and in many ways is the inspiration for the Planetary Society’s LightSail spacecraft, scheduled to be ready early in 2011 to carry out the first solar-sail propelled flight in Earth orbit.
The spacecraft is the same size and approximate mass as our own Lightsail-1, although Nanosail’s sail is smaller (3 meters on a side, instead of 4.5 meters). Nanosail will be pioneering the use of the Air Force Research Lab’s TRAC booms, which we will also be using on Lightsail-1. We’ll be interested in evaluating their deployment experience and understanding any implications to our own design.
Private SpaceShipTwo Heads for New Territory Space.com Whitehorn said more SpaceShipTwo glide tests are in the offing. Those tests will include a high-altitude drop of the craft that will allow the pilots to feather and unfeather the SpaceShipTwo’s novel, care-free tail section used during the fall back into Earth’s atmosphere. This configuration allows a “hands-off” re-entry to Earth and greatly reduces aerodynamic and thermal loads on the craft. These tests […]
