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RobGoldsmith writes:
Like sugar plum fairies in “The Nutcracker,” the moons of Saturn performed a celestial ballet before the eyes of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. New movies frame the moons’ silent dance against the majestic sweep of the planet’s rings and show as many as four moons gliding around one another. View the movies and see images here!
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RobGoldsmith writes:
Virgin Founder, Sir Richard Branson and SpaceshipOne designer, Burt Rutan, today revealed SpaceShipTwo to the public for the first time since construction of the world’s first manned commercial spaceship began in 2007. SpaceShipTwo has been designed to take many thousands of private astronauts into space.
SpaceShipTwo and its mothership, WhiteKnightTwo herald a new era in commercial space flight with daily space tourism flights set to commence from Spaceport America in New Mexico. View amazing new images and read this article for all the latest information regarding the Spaceship.
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RobGoldsmith writes:
Private New Zealand aerospace company Rocket Lab completed its final ground-based test today and is now ready to launch New Zealand into the space race with its Atea-1 launch vehicle. The first high altitude launch of Atea-1 is scheduled for the end of November this year. Once Atea-1 has successfully concluded the development phase it will be the first privately built rocket launched from the Southern Hemisphere to enter space. Read this article to see a new CGI movie and get more information on the launch!
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Dagondanum writes:
Multiple missions have been sent to Mars with the hopes of testing the surface of the planet for life – or the conditions that could create life – on the Red Planet. The question of whether life in the form of bacteria (or something even more exotic!) exists on Mars is hotly debated, and still requires a resolute yes or no. Experiments done right here on Earth that simulate the conditions on Mars and their effects on terrestrial bacteria show that it is entirely possible for certain strains of bacteria to weather the harsh environment of Mars.
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RobGoldsmith writes:
Masten Space Systems successfully qualified for first place in Level Two of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Wednesday. Flying a brand new vehicle named XA-0.1E (nicknamed Xoie), Masten demonstrated their ability to build, debug and fly a vehicle on a very short timeline.
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Matt_dk writes:
The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has developed a design for a piloted spacecraft powered by a nuclear engine, the head of the agency said on Wednesday. “The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs,” Anatoly Perminov said at a meeting of the commission on the modernization of the Russian economy. He added that the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial for Russia if the country wanted to maintain a competitive edge in the space race, including the exploration of the Moon and Mars.
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RobGoldsmith writes:
ESA astronaut Frank De Winne became the first European commander of the International Space Station this morning with the departure of Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka who had filled this role since April. De Winne is the first non-American and non-Russian to take on this role. Watch the videos and view images here.
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Matt_dk writes:
For the first time, astronomers have confirmed that an asteroid contains frozen water on its surface. Analysis of asteroid 24 Themis shows evidence of water ice along with organic compounds widespread across the surface. The scientists say these new findings support the theory that asteroids brought both water and organic compounds to the early Earth, helping lay the foundation for life on the planet.
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Matt_dk writes:
The U.S. firm Space Adventures said on Friday it will be able to send two space tourists into orbit on Soyuz spacecraft from 2012 onwards. "We have been working on this project for a number of years" said Sergey Kostenko, the head of the company's office in Russia. Each Soyuz will carry two tourists and a professional astronaut. One of the tourists will have to pass a year-and-a-half training course as a flight engineer. Space Adventures has been authorized by the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos to select and contract candidates for space tourist trips.
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Matt_dk writes:
The confirmation of the nature of CoRoT-7b as the first rocky planet outside our Solar System marks a significant step forward in the search for Earth-like exoplanets. The detection by CoRoT and follow-up radial velocity measurements with HARPS suggest that this exoplanet, CoRoT-7b, has a density similar to that of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth making it only the fifth known terrestrial planet in the Universe. The search for a habitable exoplanet is one of the holy grails in astronomy. One of the first steps towards this goal is the detection of terrestrial planets around solar-type stars. Dedicated programmes, using telescopes in space and on ground, have yielded evidence for hundreds of planets outside of our Solar System. The majority of these are giant, gaseous planets, but in recent years small, almost Earth-mass planets have been detected demonstrating that the discovery of Earth analogues â" exoplanets with one Earth mass or one Earth radius orbiting a solar-type star at a distance of about 1 astronomical unit â" is within reach.
