NASA WISE: Retired Satellite Telescope to be Re-activated

NASA is considering re-activating a mothballed space telescope to help find asteroids that could be on a collision course with Earth, according to a senior U.S. space agency official.

Launched in December 2009, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), telescope spent about a year taking pictures for an all-sky map.

With its infrared detectors, WISE was able to peer through thick layers of dust and see even relatively dim objects such as cool brown dwarf stars in great detail.

NASA then put WISE to work on another mission looking for asteroids and comets in the solar system. Of particular interest were objects in orbits that pass relatively close to Earth.

WISE found about 150 near-Earth asteroids, including 20 that were potentially hazardous, before funding for the project ran out. The telescope was put into hibernation in February 2011.

Lindley Johnson

NASA is now reviewing options for enhancing its asteroid-hunting efforts including bringing WISE out of hibernation, Lindley Johnson, who oversees the agency's Near-Earth Objects observations program, said this week.

This follows February's explosion of a small asteroid in the skies above Russia and the near-Earth passage of a larger one the same day.

More than 1,500 people were hurt by flying glass and debris after that small asteroid exploded above Chelyabinsk, Russia.

The larger asteroid then zipped past Earth closer than the networks of communication satellites that ring the planet.

Together, those events served as a celestial alarm clock, prompting congressional hearings and fresh calls for NASA and other agencies to step up asteroid detection initiatives.

NASA says it already has found about 95 percent of the asteroids that are .62 miles or larger in diameter.

"If an object of that size were to impact the Earth, it would have global consequences," Lindley said during a NASA advisory committee meeting in Washington.

"One as much as 100 meters (328 feet) in size would have regional effects and could cause a great many casualties."

The Obama administration has requested funding from Congress to double NASA's $20 million Near-Earth Objects detection programs for the 2014 fiscal year beginning October 1.

Costs for WISE's potential re-activation and operation were not released, but Johnson said it may be possible within the program's current $20 million annual budget and would easily fit within the proposed $40 million spending plan.

NASA's human exploration program also has been developing an initiative to send a robotic spacecraft to a small nearby asteroid and redirect it into a high orbit around the moon, officials said.

Astronauts would then visit the asteroid as part of an initial foray to send humans beyond the International Space Station, which flies about 250 miles above Earth.

Another $85 million in Obama's $17.7 billion 2014 spending plan for NASA would start technology developments and planning for the robotic portion of the asteroid encounter.

NASA is about halfway through a 15-year effort to find 90 percent of all near-Earth objects that are as small as about 459 feet in diameter.

Scientists say one of the quickest ways to speed up the effort is to re-activate WISE. "We think it can be operated for three years and get much more data," Johnson said.

Time is of the essence as WISE is expected to slip from its optimal viewing orbit around Earth by early 2017.

NASA Space shuttle Atlantis (retired) exhibited

Space shuttle Atlantis (retired) is seen fully-exposed, its protective shrink-wrap cover removed, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, April 26, 2013.

CREDIT: Robert Z. Pearlman

Space Shuttle Atlantis (retired) is ready for its admiring public.

The retired NASA orbiter, which is set to go on public display June 29 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, was fully revealed Friday (April 26) after workers spent two days peeling off its protective shrink-wrap cover of the past five months.

"It looks fantastic," Tim Macy, director of project development and construction for Delaware North Parks and Resorts, which runs the visitor complex for NASA, said after seeing Atlantis unwrapped. "It looks better than I thought it was going to look."

"It looks completely different with the plastic on it than the plastic off," Macy told reporters. "But this is the way it is supposed to look. It looks so much like the exhibit's conceptual drawings."

On Thursday, workers began carefully cutting back the 16,000 square feet (1,486 square meters) of shrink wrap that protected Atlantis as its $100 million exhibition building was completed around it.

By the end of the first day, the shuttle's nose, tail, aft engines and left wing were exposed.

On Friday, the workers completed the process, revealing Atlantis' right wing and its 60-foot-long (18 meter) payload bay.

"I cannot wait to get the covers off the windows and get the doors open to see the final configuration," Macy said.

NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis (Retired) - Under Wraps

Since entering its six-story exhibit building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida in November 2012, space shuttle Atlantis has been raised off the ground, shrink-wrapped in 16,000 square feet of plastic and tilted 43 degrees

The tilt is designed to give guests a view of what the shuttle looked like to astronauts aboard the International Space Station. 

CREDIT: collectSPACE.com/Robert Z. Pearlman

With Atlantis shielded from dirt and dust, work is underway to finish walkways and theaters that will lead visitors through the history of the space shuttle program as they tour around Atlantis and more than 60 related exhibits.

Come May 2013, when the shuttle is unwrapped, its payload bay doors will be carefully opened, a replica of its Canadarm robotic arm will be extended and a full-scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope will be installed to span two floors.

Meanwhile outside the facility, the finishing touches are being put on the building's glimmering orange facade that was designed to evoke the space shuttle's re-entry into the atmosphere.

Nearby, the steel skeleton of what will be two towering 185-foot-tall (56 meters) replica solid rocket boosters have begun to rise off the ground.

Visitors will walk between the two rockets — and underneath a massive external fuel tank suspended from them — to enter the exhibit.

Looking forward.

NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis - Garage Sale

Nasa Space Shuttle Atlantis and it's sister ships now available only for viewing in museums or in kit form at the local garage sale. 

Needed to inspire and amaze younger generation, lest they forget.

End of an era.

NASA - Space Shuttle Enterprise Moves to Intrepid

Atop a barge on Wednesday, June 6, 2012, the space shuttle Enterprise was towed on the Hudson River past the Statue of Liberty on its way to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, where it will be permanently displayed.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA Shuttle Endeavour's OMS Pod

In Orbiter Processing Facility-2 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Endeavour’s left orbital maneuvering system OMS pod is in position on the aft of the shuttle and ready for installation. 

The OMS pod underwent complete de-servicing and cleaning at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, part of the transition and retirement processing of each shuttle. 

Endeavour is being prepared for public display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. 

Over the course of its 19-year career, Endeavour spent 299 days in space during 25 missions.

Image credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

NASA has Chosen Museums for Retired Space Shuttles

NASA's selection of display locations for retired space shuttles in California, Florida, New York and Virginia was implemented fairly and without improper influence, federal investigators reported Aug. 25.

NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG), which provides independent oversight for the agency, reviewed NASA's selection process as a result of concerns being raised by politicians and by some of the museums who missed out on receiving one of the four prized orbiters for their state or facility.

NASA Revises Budget for Retired Shuttles

NASA has issued a follow-up Request for Information, or RFI, for ideas from education institutions, science museums and other appropriate organisations about the community's ability to acquire and publicly display orbiters after the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program.

The original RFI in December 2008 noted that a potential shuttle recipient would have to pay an estimated $42 million for the cost of "making safe" an orbiter, preparing it for display and ferrying it to a U.S. destination airport. NASA has updated the requirements and tasks needed to make each orbiter safe for disposition.

The agency will not ask recipients to provide the funds for this activity. Except for cost and scheduled delivery changes, the 2008 and 2010 RFIs are virtually the same. In this follow-up RFI, NASA revised the estimated display preparation and ferrying costs to $28.8 million.

The schedule for transferring the orbiters may be six months earlier than originally anticipated. NASA also desires to make selections a year before receipt of the orbiters, so recipient organisations will have sufficient time to conduct any fundraising activities necessary to support preparation and ferry costs.

RFI responses are due to NASA by 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, Feb. 19, 2010. Organisations that responded to the original RFI do not need to resubmit a full response, but should clarify their positions with respect to these changes.

NASA is planning to transfer space shuttle Discovery to the National Air and Space Museum. Shuttle orbiters Endeavour and Atlantis will be available for placement no earlier than July, 2011.