Asteroid Impact "Apophis"

TheTamshee say: If you are interested in all things space, then navigate to original post and click on title link for an interesting article on the 880-megaton asteroid "Apophis" which is on possible collision course with our fine planet.

Go Atlantis

Lights covering the fixed service structure on Launch Pad 39A cast their glow over space shuttle Atlantis. The shuttle waits the arrival of the payload canister with its cargo of Hubble Space Telescope equipment. The payload will be transferred into Atlantis' payload bay for the 11-day STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Telescope.Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett TheTamshee says: technology has no limits, space the final frontier will be conquered " there's life Jim, but not as we know it" The payload canister with the Hubble Space Telescope equipment heads for Launch Pad 39A. In the foreground, a bobcat runs across the road.

Fermi GR "Space Telescope"

An international team of astronomers have used the world’s biggest radio telescope to look deep into the brightest galaxies that NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope can see. The study solidifies the link between an active galaxy’s gamma-ray emissions and its powerful radio-emitting jets. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration and NRAO/AUI/MOJAVE Team/M. Kadler. TheTamshee says: to look beyond the minds eye, outer space, the everlasting journey ?

Doughnut Spaceship

NASA-funded R&D engineers are working on plans for future spaceships to enter orbit around Mars using a doughnut shaped, steerable balloon-chute to slow down by flying through the Red Planet's atmosphere. Nobody believed Zralthar about the doughnut ships from Earth, until it was too late. Global Aerospace is a Californian firm founded by ex-NASA engineers. The company announced that it would start modelling work aimed at developing what it calls a "lifting-towed-toroidal-ballute" for use by spacecraft approaching planets with a view to entering orbit around them, or perhaps subsequently landing on them. The team think that an inflatable "ballute" (a balloon-parachute combo) could be very useful for slowing spacecraft down by atmospheric braking. Even a slow interplanetary journey would tend to see a spacecraft arriving still going at very high speed, so much so that left to itself it might simply zoom past, escaping the destination planet's gravity field and barrelling off uselessly into space again.
It would, of course, be possible to slow down using rocket thrust. But this means carrying a significant amount of fuel all the long and weary way from Earth - and consequently much less payload. According to Global Aerospace, it would make more sense to slow down by steering a speeding interplanetary ship into the planet's atmosphere, letting friction slow it down without use of fuel. In order to avoid getting awfully hot, the plan would be to fly through the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, with most of the braking provided by the inflatable ballute rather than the ship itself. The clever bit with the Global Aerospace doughnut-balloon wing/chute is that it provides lift as well as drag, and it's designed to be controllable from the ship. The Californian engineers believe that this will make longer flights through the atmosphere feasible, getting more braking for a given size of ballute - and so more payload.
The use of smaller ballutes will make them more attractive and feasible for missions to planets such as Neptune, where high heating rates require extremely large ballutes for drag-only capture. Ballutes can also be used to decelerate large payloads for landing at Mars. In this case, lifting ballutes can significantly reduce deceleration forces, which can result in lower mass ballute systems and reduced g-loads on crews that fly them to the surface of Mars.

Atlantis At Launch Pad

Fresh off the STS-119 mission to power up the space station, NASA is shifting focus to Atlantis' May mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble Servicing Mission Space Shuttle Section TheTamshee says: there has been some interesting "space developements" in the upper stratosphere of Inchgarth with the RB-26-06-2003 making final approach en-route to orbiting the full moon.

Discovery "Blast Off"

Discovery took off as the sun was setting, a spectacular sight for a space agency anxious about the prospects of a successful take off after a hydrogen leak prevented the shuttle from lifting off on Wednesday.
Before that, hydrogen valves kept the shuttle grounded for weeks in February. Launch pad repairs took care of the leak, and the astronauts were able to board their spaceship and lift off.
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"Well, you had a little bit of a wait but that will just make the payoff that much sweeter," the launch director Mike Leinbach told the astronauts.
Commander Lee Archambault and his crew, which includes two former schoolteachers, should reach the international space station on Tuesday.
"Thanks for the work Mike, we'll see you in a couple weeks. Take care and let's go ahead and fire up the sound of freedom," Commander Archambault said.
The shuttle is delivering one last set of solar wings for the space station and some critical equipment for a relatively new water-recycling system. TheTamshee says: the oldest Indy Kid loves this kind of stuff - she has already supplied the primary school with a copy of her Redshift Astronomy skills CD, but can't quite comprehend why she is not able to see the Shuttle from her bedroom window with her Eco Science telescope -not quite up to Hubble standards

Voyager "Mission"

NASA--Shortly after the Pioneers made their flybys, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes followed. They made many important discoveries about Jupiter and Saturn, including rings around Jupiter and the presence of volcanism on Jupiter's moon, Io. Voyager went on to make the first flybys of Uranus, where it discovered 10 new moons, and Neptune, where it found that Neptune actually weighs less than astronomers thought. Both Voyager crafts have enough power to keep transmitting radio signals until at least 2025, and are now exploring the very edge of the solar system and beginning of interstellar space. Voyager 2 is currently the farthest man-made object from Earth, at more than a hundred times the distance from the Earth to the sun, and more than twice as far as Pluto.

Space "Missions"

NASA--Pioneer 10 & 11, launched in 1972 and 1973, respectively, were the first spacecraft to visit the solar system's most photogenic gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Pioneer 10 was the first probe to travel through the solar system's asteroid belt, a field of orbiting rocks between Mars and Jupiter. Then about a year-and-a-half after its launch, the spacecraft made the first flyby of the planet Jupiter. It took stunning up-close photos of the Great Red Spot and the wide swaths of red that band the planet. About a year later, Pioneer 11 flew by Jupiter, and then moved on to Saturn, where it discovered a couple of previously unknown small moons around the planet, and a new ring. Both probes have stopped sending data, and are continuing out on their one-way voyages beyond the solar system. TheTamshee says: there's something hypnotic about the images from outer space, awesome