Tag: space

The Mars Generation, launched on Sept. 15, 2015, aims to prepare the next generation of space buffs by getting youth excited about space and science education. Credit: The Mars Generation

Abigail Harrison wasn’t alive to see the moon landings. She wasn’t alive to witness the first space shuttle launch. And she’s not even old enough to remember the start of the International Space Station.

But for almost for her entire life, the 18-year-old from Minneapolis has dreamed of being an astronaut. More specifically, she has set her personal goal to be a part of the first crew to land on Mars. For the past five years, under the social media identity “Astronaut Abby,” Harrison has gone about not only advancing her own dream, but sharing her passion for space exploration with tens of thousands of students her age and younger.

Now, as a college freshman, Harrison is launching “Astronaut Abby” on an even larger mission —getting people of all ages excited and educated about what it means to be a member of the generation that will land humans on Mars. [Red Planet or Bust: 5 Manned Mars Mission Ideas]

Abigail Harrison, known on social media and online as “Astronaut Abby,” has joined with astronauts, space program workers and others to form The Mars Generation, a new nonprofit organization dedicated to getting people excited about space exploration.
Credit: The Mars Generation

“In the past, a lot of the things I did were about sharing my own journey and doing a lot of the work on my own,” Harrison explains. “The exciting thing about founding The Mars Generation is that I am not doing it alone anymore.”

Today (Sept. 15), Harrison, joined by astronauts, space program workers, social media experts and others, launched The Mars Generation, a nonprofit organization devoted to raising recognition of, and a renewed investment in, space exploration. 

“The exciting thing about founding The Mars Generation is that I am not doing it alone,” Harrison told Space.com. “I am founding it with an incredible advisory board and founding board — people who have expertise in all types of areas who are able to now share their experiences, their abilities, their talents and their contributions with students and adults around the world in a way that I never could.”

Among the leaders joining forces with Harrison are former NASA astronauts Wendy Lawrence, Dorothy Metcalf Lindenburger and Kent Rominger, International Space Station payload communicator Penny Pettigrew and Boeing Space Launch System engineer Myron Fletcher. (Disclaimer: Robert Pearlman, Space.com contributing writer and author of this article, also serves on the advisory board for The Mars Generation.)

In addition to continuing the online and real world educational outreach activities that have been part of Harrison’s Astronaut Abby activities up to now, The Mars Generation will also now be organizing a student space ambassador program.

“Over the years I have met a lot of students who want to be involved in space travel or the space program — not just doing the science or the engineering or becoming an astronaut, but wanting to be ambassadors for their own communities,” Harrison said.

The Mars Generation’s mentorship program will teach students ages 13 through 24 how best to get involved in their communities, use social media to their advantage and advance their own outreach activities.

In another of its new programs, the organization will award scholarships for students to attend Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

“There are scholarships for Space Camp already, but there aren’t that many out there that are either fully paid or provide travel expenses,” Harrison explained. “For students who are living in poverty, even scholarships that are fully paid but do not provide travel still do not do enough because they and their communities are not able to meet that travel fees.”

“This is a way to expand Space Camp’s ability to affect young people throughout the United States,” she said. [How to Become an Astronaut]

Above all, Harrison sees The Mars Generation as an opportunity to get people to understand why space exploration is important, why it is exciting and why space travel is one of the things we should invest in for our future.

“Going to Mars is my dream, but even more than that is the importance of us getting to Mars as a society,” Harrison said. “So when it comes down to it, the work that I am trying to do now and that I hope and intend to do until the Mars launches happen, is not really about me but about someone getting to Mars.”

For more details, see The Mars Generation’s website at www.themarsgeneration.org.

Robert Z. Pearlman is a Space.com contributing writer and the editor of collectSPACE.com, a Space.com partner site and the leading space history-focused news publication. Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Credit: NASA

This story was updated at 1:45 p.m. EDT.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of private spaceflight company Blue Origin and founder and CEO of Amazon.com, announced today that Blue Origin will make Florida’s Space Coast its home port for reusable rocket launches.

Blue Origin, which Bezos founded in 2000, will launch rockets and spacecraft from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The company will lease the launchpad and establish a “21st century production facility” to manufacture a reusable fleet of orbital vehicles. Florida Governor Rick Scott praised the venture, which he said will “invest $200 million locally and create 330 jobs.”

“As a kid, I was inspired by the giant Saturn V missions that roared to life from these very shores,” Bezos said during the announcement here today (Sept. 15). “Today, we’re thrilled to be coming to the Sunshine State for a new era of exploration.” [Watch Blue Origin Announce Its Florida Launch Plans]

Bezos made the announcement during an event close to Launch Complex 36, which saw its last launch in 2005. Speakers at the event included Governor Scott and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla).

At the event, Bezos also unveiled an artist’s concept image of Blue Origin’s new orbital launch vehicle, which Bezos said has been nicknamed “Very Big Brother.”  The new rocket will launch and land vertically to reuse its first stage.

The new Florida facility will include a rebuilt launch pad, a facility for performing acceptance tests of the new BE-4 rocket engine, and a processing facility for manufacturing, integrating and prepping vehicles for flight.

“We’ll be launching from here later this decade,” Bezos said of the new Florida facility. Bezos told reporters that the company received detailed proposals from five states wishing to host the new facility.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, announces his company’s plans to launch spaceships and rockets from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at Launch Complex 36 on Sept. 15, 2015.
Credit: Calla Cofield/Space.com

Blue Origin is one of several private companies — like SpaceX, Boeing, Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace — in the race to offer commercial trips to space for passengers. Last week, Boeing opened a facility for its new Starliner space capsule, formerly known as the CST-100. NASA plans to use the Starliner capsule and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle to launch U.S. astronauts starting in 2017.

Blue Origin has revealed little about its mysterious biconic space vehicle design.
Credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com Contributor

The Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin is currently developing a vehicle called New Shepard that is designed to take passengers on short suborbital trips so they can experience the thrill of weightlessness and see the blackness of space without the filter of Earth’s atmosphere. The company will launch only the new orbital vehicle from the Florida facility; New Shepard will continue to launch from the company’s facility in West Texas.

Blue Origin launched a successful test flight of New Shepard last April. That spacecraft, like the new orbital launch vehicle, will feature a reusable rocket booster capable of vertical landings — a technology that space industry leaders have said can dramatically reduce the cost of commercial spaceflight. During the April test, the passenger segment of New Shepard successfully separated from its rocket booster, but the rocket itself was not recovered. 

To power its new orbital launch vehicle, Blue Origin is developing a more powerful rocket engine known as the BE-4, which is a joint venture with launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA). The BE-4 is slated to be ULA’s engine of choice for its own new rocket, the Vulcan, which will have a reusable component. Blue Origin and ULA announced a production agreement for the BE-4 engine last week.

“You will hear us before you see us,” Bezos said today. “Our American-made BE-4 engine — the power behind our orbital launch vehicle — will be acceptance-tested here. Our BE-4 engine will also help make history as it powers the first flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket.”

Cooperation between NASA and private companies has accelerated in the past year.

Last week, Boeing opened its Commercial Crew Cargo Processing Facility for the Starliner space capsule at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center near the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. That facility is located inside one of NASA’s old space shuttle hangars, which Boeing has repurposed for the Starliner vehicle.

Meanwhile, commercial spaceflight company SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has captured its own foothold on Florida’s Space Coast. The company recently signed a 20-year lease with NASA to use the agency’s Apollo and shuttle-era Launch Pad 39A complex to launch its huge Falcon Heavy rocket.

SpaceX has also been testing a reusable booster for its current Falcon 9 rocket, and has made several unsuccessful attempts to land the booster stage on a drone ship this year. SpaceX hopes to attempt another landing later this year.

Bezos said he looks forward to Blue Origin becoming a part of the long legacy of spaceflight associated with the Cape Canaveral region. 

“You residents of the Space Coast have enjoyed front-row seats to the future for almost 60 years. That’s pretty cool,” Bezos said. “Our team’s passion for pioneering is a perfect fit for a community foraging new frontiers. Please keep watching.”

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is spending a year in space during his Expedition 44 mission to the International Space Station. Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are flying the yearlong space mission to study the effects of long-term spaceflight on the human body. Credit: NASA

Two space travelers on the International Space Station are entering rarely tread territory as they pass the six-month mark in a yearlong stay in orbit. The mission will help scientists understand how humans might cope with a journey to Mars.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly on the International Space Station (via video at top) waves while talking with reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 14, 2015 during a discussion of his one-year space mission. Kelly’s identical twin brother Mark Kelly (a former NASA astronaut) sits at center, with National Press Club president John Hughs at left and astronaut Terry Virts at right.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko have been living on the space station for about six months and won’t be going home for another half-year. Their yearlong space mission is about twice as long as a typical extended stay on the station, so compared to typical astronauts, they’re spending twice the time away from friends and family, twice the time in weightlessness, and twice the time exposed to space radiation — and experiencing twice the dose of physical and mental stress.

“I expected this to not be easy. A year is a long time,” Kelly told reporters during an in-flight interview on Sept. 8. Kelly and Kornienko are undergoing a swarm of scientific studies that may shed light on the mental and physical changes the human body undergoes during long spaceflight missions. The long-term goal of the one-year mission is to help develop better ways to prepare and protect astronauts as they take the next big leap beyond Earth — possibly on a journey to the Red Planet. [NASA’s One-Year Space Mission in Pictures]

“I feel pretty good overall,” Kelly said Monday (Sept. 14) in an in-flight interview on NASA TV. “I definitely recognize that I’ve been up here a long time and have just as long ahead of me. But I feel positive about it.”

Kelly added that he has consciously paced himself more slowly on this mission than on his last trip into orbit, which put him on the orbiting laboratory for 159 days.

“I intentionally thought about ways for me to get to the end of this with as much energy as I had in the beginning,” Kelly said. “I intentionally don’t work at the same pace I did last time I was up here, when I felt like I could go at 100 percent speed for the full six months. I can’t do that. So I consciously try to throttle myself back at certain times and have a really good balance between work and rest. And that’s what I would encourage anyone who attempts to spend this amount of time in this type of environment, is you just have to pace yourself.”

If humans were to take a trip to Mars using near-future technology, the journey would likely take more than one year each way. While Kelly and Kornienko are not the first astronauts to surpass six months in space — five Russian cosmonauts have spent more than a year in orbit — relatively little scientific study has been done on those long-term space travelers. With the one-year mission, scientists will get their hands on a massive haul of data revealing the physical effects of long-duration spaceflight. Ultimately, this may help scientists understand how to assist and protect astronauts going to Mars or beyond.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (right) and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko on the International Space Station speak with members of the press via a video link on Monday, Sept. 14, 2015. Tuesday (Sept. 15) marks the halfway point of their one-year mission, which will keep them on the station until March 2016.
Credit: NASA TV

“Physically, I feel good […] but there are a lot of effects of this environment that we can’t see or feel, like bone loss, effects on our vision, effects on our genetics — DNA, RNA and proteins — and that’s why we’re studying myself and [Mikhail Kornienko] on this one-year flight,” Kelly said Monday. “I think right now the jury’s out on [what those effects are]. We’re going to have to get all the data and have the scientists analyze it […]. Hopefully, we’ll find out some great things about me and my colleagues spending a year in space.” [The Human Body In Space: 6 Weird Facts]

While the results of the scientific studies on Kelly and Kornienko will not be revealed until after the mission is over, Kelly said he has taken note of how his body has adjusted to life in microgravity. He said spending a long time aboard the station means that he continues to adapt.

“So far, I’ve found that it is a continuous thing,” Kelly said. “It gets less significant over time, but I do notice that I can do things now that I couldn’t do right when I first got up here, even though I had flown 180 days in space before. My ability to move around is really improved over time and continues to improve. And, you know, you just get more comfortable. Your clarity of thought is greater. Your ability to focus. Things like that. I have found that the adaptation has not stopped. And it’ll be interesting to see where I’m at six months from now.”

While a one-year mission on the International Space Station is no easy task, it is certainly very different from a trip to Mars. Space travelers on a journey to the Red Planet would travel through millions of miles of empty space, far from home and locked up with the same group of people for the entire trip. The astronauts on the orbiting station have it somewhat easier: They can see Earth. They have a relatively quick way to get home if the need arises, and their crewmates change from time to time.

But Kelly and Kornienko will experience some of the mental strain of a Mars mission while they are on the station, including not being able to go outside (except during spacewalks, which aren’t exactly a walk in the park).

“This is a very closed environment. We can never leave. The lighting’s always pretty much the same — the smells, the sounds, everything’s the same,” Kelly said yesterday. “I think even most prisoners can get outside occasionally in a week. But we can’t. And that’s what I miss, after people.”

A year in space means a year away from the supermarket. Here, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly poses with a delivery of fresh fruit on the International Space Station that arrived in late August on a Japanese cargo ship.
Credit: NASA

In the Sept. 8 interview, Kelly was asked what he thought might be the difference between his mindset at the halfway point of the one-year mission, and the mindset of some future crew reaching a halfway point on a journey to Mars.

“I think for the folks who go to Mars, especially the first time, that’s going to be such an incredible destination and event that they’re going to be really psyched up for getting there,” Kelly said. “And I’m not saying I’m not psyched up for the rest of this, but in some ways, almost being halfway through, a lot of what we’re going to be doing is going to be similar to what we’ve already done. And we have a person here […] who is getting ready to leave us — Gennady [Padalka]. And that obviously wouldn’t happen on [a journey to] Mars. That makes it a little bit different — people coming and going. So I think it’s hard to compare the two experiences, but man I’m excited for the folks who get to go to Mars someday.”

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

The slithering head of Hydra, marked in red, moves its way into the northern latitudes, seen here of the pristine lake of Llyn y Fan Fach in the Brecon Beacons Dark Sky Reserve in Wales, U.K. Credit: Copyright Huw James Media

Huw James is a science communicator, fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and guest lecturer at the University of South Wales. Follow James on Twitter @huwmjames and keep an eye on his website for more info on his upcoming “Constellation Series” book. James contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

In the summer months it’s hard to imagine the draining, bitter cold. In the mountains especially, the frost seeps past through your layers of clothes through your tingling skin and  penetrates your bones. On the shore of Llyn Y Fan Fawr in winter, the skies are enchanting but enduring temperatures of 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) to get a good shot makes any photographer question his or her sanity. 

Llyn y Fan Fawr is Welsh for “lake of the big peak,” at the foothill of Fan Brycheiniog in Wales. Its sister lake Llyn y Fan Fach comes complete with a “Celtic goddess,” a ghostly figure that haunts the lake. From this Dark Sky Reserve in the U.K.’s Brecon Beacon National Park, many constellations leap out at you like the monsters they portray. The “water snake” named Hydra is a textbook example, slithering its way out from the underworld. 

Hydra is the largest of all the modern constellations and has a long history and star lore, which is complex and chaotic. It is now believed by Western cultures to represent a female water snake, with Hydrus in the Southern Hemisphere as its male counterpart. With Corvus and Crater upon its back, it sometimes shares stories with similarly reptilian constellations like Draco and Cetus, both long, serpentine creatures.

It is now largely agreed that the most well-known star lore for this constellation follows the many-headed monster slain by the mighty Hercules in his 12 labors. As the creature terrorized the town of Lerna, Hercules tried to stop the nine-headed monster by slicing off its heads. Famously, any severed head of Hydra sprouts two or three more. But by cauterizing the blood with flaming branches and slicing off the immortal golden head of the beast, Hercules slew the beast for good. 

Though technically a Southern Hemisphere constellation, the constellation can be seen as far north as 54 degrees north of the equator. Many Messier and NGC (catalogs of deep-sky objects) objects lie within the boundaries of this huge constellation, a few as star clusters but some as impressive spiral galaxies. 

From the Northern Hemisphere you’ll only really see M48, an open star cluster that can still be seen with the naked eye in clear, dark conditions. The other Messier Catalog objects in Hydra are farther south, named M68 and M83. The former is a stunning globular cluster that can easily be resolved through a medium-size telescope. The latter is a splendid barred galaxy (a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure) that can be made out in fairly good detail with a large telescope but can be seen with a pair of good binoculars. 

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Credit: SPACE.com

Other objects of note include the Ghost of Jupiter. A planetary nebula (NGC 3242) discovered by William Herschel that bears a resemblance to our solar system’s largest planet. Also, two meteor showers are linked with this constellation: in early December the active Sigma Hydrids and in January the minor Alpha Hydrids.

Hydra is a fulfilling constellation that almost spans the length of the night sky. It links people through history and geography and is worth looking out for. 

Those with a telescope and a bit of astronomy know-how can find Hydra’s deep-sky objects at:

M48 – RA 08h 13.7m D-05°45′ 

M68 – RA12h 39m 27.98s D-26°44’38.6″

M83 – RA13h 37m 00.9s D-29° 51′ 57″

Note: RA and D are Right Ascension and Declination, the latitude and longitude of the night sky.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.

Demonstrating one small step for rover operations, a European astronaut successfully maneuvered a machine on Earth in precision operations from his perch 248 miles (400 kilometers) high on the International Space Station.

Sept. 7, the European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen helped demonstrate the first “force feedback” using a rover controlled from space. With the help of a system that let him feel forces pressing against the rover’s arm, Mogensen remotely inserted a small, round peg into a “task board” that offered just a fraction of a millimeter of clearance.

“Andreas managed two complete drive, approach, park and peg-in-hole insertions, demonstrating precision force-feedback from orbit for the very first time in the history of spaceflight,” experiment leader André Schiele of ESA’s Telerobotics and Haptics Laboratory said in a statement. [Video: Space-Borne Astronaut Runs Robot On Earth]

Andreas Mogensen, aboard the International Space Station, is visible here controlling the Interact rover as it prepared to place a metal peg into a hole.
Credit: ESA

“He had never operated the rover before, but its controls turned out to be very intuitive,” Schiele said in the statement. “Andreas took 45 minutes to reach the task board and then insert the pin on his first attempt, and less than 10 minutes on his follow-up attempt, showing a very steep learning curve.”

Clever engineering allowed the astronaut to “feel” his way around the hole despite there being a 1-second delay between his movements and what was happening on the ground. The team — which included members from the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) and graduate students from Delft University of Technology, both in the Netherlands — created software models to compensate for the lag.

The signal from the space station has to pass through several obstacles before reaching ESTEC and the waiting rover. After leaving the station, the signal goes to satellites in geosynchronous orbit roughly 22,300 miles (36,000 km) high, beams to a ground station in New Mexico (via NASA’s Johnson Space Center) and then travels to ESTEC via a transatlantic cable. 

By the time the signal gets back from the International Space Station, the round-trip is more than 89,000 miles (144,000 km), the equivalent of nearly halfway to the moon.

Besides placing a peg in a hole, Mogensen also evaluated the stiffness of different springs on the joystick to figure out the appropriate sensitivity for the device. 

The experiment, called Interact, is intended to pioneer remote-control operations from space. As astronauts expand exploration across the solar system, someday this technology could be used for lunar bases or exploring Mars, ESA officials added.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

ESA’s sun-watching satellite Proba-2 captured Sept. 13’s partial solar eclipse three times as it orbited the Earth; in each, its extreme ultraviolet SWAP imager caught the moon approaching and overshadowing part of the sun. Credit: ESA/Royal Observatory of Belgium

When the moon blocked the sun in a partial solar eclipse on Sunday (Sept. 13) a European satellite managed to catch the celestial event on camera not once but three different times. Meanwhile, back on Earth, viewers in South Africa saw it just once, but were still able to enjoy the view.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) satellite Proba-2, which focuses on the sun, captured three times as much eclipse as Earth did by dodging in and out of the moon’s shadow as it orbited the planet. In each pass through the moon’s shadow, the satellite caught the dark sphere of the moon covering part of the sun, acquiring a thick, fiery solar halo in the satellite’s extreme ultraviolet SWAP imager. At Space.com, we assembled Proba-2’s view of the solar eclipse in a gallery alongside other images by skywatchers on Earth. 

Skywatchers in South Africa, meanwhile, set up early and dodged hazy clouds to view and document the moon’s approach. The eclipse was also visible from the southern Indian Ocean and Antarctica. 

“I didn’t have much hope of observing the eclipse, since the previous evening was cloudy and more cloudy weather was predicted for this morning,” said K.J. Mulder, a blogger and space photographer based in Western Cape, South Africa. “I was pleased to find hazy, high level clouds in the sky when I woke up. While not ideal, it would at least allow me to observe the eclipse in some form,” Mulder said in an email to Space.com. [Solar Eclipses: An Observer’s Guide (Infographic)]

K.J. Mulder snapped a series of partial-solar-eclipse photos Sept. 13 from his home in South Africa, using a 3.5-inch Skywatcher refractor telescope equipped with a Baader solar filter. Hazy clouds occasionally blocked his view.
Credit: K.J. Mulder/Worlds in Ink

Mulder captured the eclipse with a 3.5-inch Skywatcher refractor telescope equipped with a Baader solar filter and, along with his sister, viewed the eclipse with eclipse glasses. “Without the eclipse glasses, you couldn’t really tell that the eclipse was happening, aside from a slight dimming to the normal light conditions,” he said. “Through the eclipse glasses, the eclipse was clearly visible to the naked eye, with the sun appearing distinctly Pac-Man-like.” Mulder was also able to glimpse two sunspots on the solar surface.

Zarina Ebrahim captured the partial solar eclipse Sept. 13 at the foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, using a Nikon D60 camera.
Credit: Zarina Ebrahim/@zarenya

Zarina Ebrahim, a graphic designer in Cape Town, South Africa, kept an eye on the eclipse from the foot of Cape Town’s Table Mountain. She used a Nikon D60 camera with a Mylar filter, Ebrahim told Space.com in an email.

Rudolph uses Mylar filter glasses to view the partial solar eclipse; the photography setup is visible as well. The Lions Head mountain nestles in the background.
Credit: Zarina Ebrahim/@zarenya

Her friend Rudolph used Mylar filter glasses to look at the eclipse as well; the camera setup is visible in the background of the photo. Prepared skywatchers in the right location could catch the eclipse in progress — if only once as compared to Proba-2’s three times.

The partial solar eclipse from Cape Town, South Africa, as taken by Zarina Ebrahim.
Credit: Zarina Ebrahim/@zarenya

Sunday, Sept. 27 will bring another spectacular sight: Observers throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, western Asia and the eastern Pacific Ocean region will be able to see a “supermoon” lunar eclipse, when an extra-bright and large full moon will be blotted out by the Earth’s shadow — the first such eclipse since 1982. A similar event will not occur again until 2033, so be sure to look up.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.