US sign $1Bn contract for Russian RD-181 rocket engines for US Antares Launcher

Deespite US sanctions against Russia, Russian manufacturer, Energia, announced on Friday a $1 billion deal to supply engines for the US Antares rockets making deliveries to the International Space Station.

Energia said in a statement that it had signed the bumper deal to build 60 engines with private US firm Orbital Science, which has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to supply the space station.

Deliveries of the new RD-181 engines would start in June, the statement said.

The agreement comes after an Orbital Science rocket suffered a catastrophic engine failure in October, forcing an end to its supply missions until further notice.

An unmanned Antares rocket packed with thousands of pounds of gear for astronauts exploded seconds after lift-off in the US, costing the company some $200 million.

The company said after the accident that a suspected rocket engine failure led a control operator to detonate the rocket in order to prevent damage to people in the area.

The firm pledged a speedy upgrade to its systems after saying that the engines used to power the Antares rocket were a pair of decades-old Ukrainian-designed AJ-26s, that were refurbished by Aerojet Rocketdyne.

The International Space Station is a rare area of US-Russian cooperation that has not been hit by the crisis in Ukraine, which has prompted Washington to impose sanctions on Moscow.

US ISS space lab in relative darkness during 'sleep time'

The US ISS space lab in relative darkness during 'sleep time' on the space station.

This image was posted on Twitter by the new guy, NASA astronaut Terry Virts.

Credit: NASA

Antares Rocket Powered by Refurbished Soviet Engines - US Blame game

The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft onboard suffers a catastrophic anomaly moments after launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. 

Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

The private American rocket that exploded shortly after liftoff Tuesday evening (Oct. 28) was powered partly by an engine built to get cosmonauts to the moon in the 1960s.

Orbital Sciences Corp.'s two-stage Antares rocket crashed in a fiery heap just seconds after launching from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Tuesday, ending an attempted cargo run to the International Space Station just seconds after it began.

Antares' first stage uses two AJ26 engines, which are refurbished variants of the NK-33 built by the Soviet Union for its ill-fated N-1 moon rocket during the height of the space race.

While it's unclear at the moment whether or not the AJ26 played any role in Tuesday's mishap, the engines' age and provenance has already stirred debate, as well as a bit of criticism.

An AJ26 engine is placed in a test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center. 

Credit: NASA

Some of the criticism long predates this week's accident.

In 2012, for example, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk bad-mouthed the Antares mission "honestly, it sounds like the punch line to a joke."

"It uses Russian rocket engines that were made in the '60s," Musk told Wired magazine. "I don’t mean their design is from the '60s, I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the '60s and, like, packed away in Siberia somewhere."

This Aerial view of a launch pad shows the aftermath of an Antares rocket explosion. Image taken on Oct. 29, 2014.

Credit: NASA/Terry Zaperach

While the fiery Antares rocket explosion did not destroy the launch pad or fuel tanks at the launch complex at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, "some repairs will be necessary," according to Orbital representatives. NASA officials have found that some support buildings at Wallops have blown-out windows and doors, and a sounding rocket launcher and other buildings near the pad have severe damage.

The initial assessment also showed that the transporter erector launcher and lightning suppression rods at the pad sustained the most damage, according to NASA.

It will take multiple weeks to completely assess the areas affected by the launch mishap, space agency officials added.

Musk fails to mention that Russian rocket technology and success pre-dates NASA and has continued to be the most reliable and widely used power packages in the space industry.

The care and maintenance along with the addition of US-manufactured sensors and components all adding to the complexity of the crash investigation.

Initial statements declare that the launch was aborted and that the control team had initiated a 'self-destruct' command to prevent the launch vehicle becoming a destructive threat.

We await further information and clarity from Orbital Science and its mission team, meantime speculation will continue to grow and competitors will fuel the fire of doubt for their own benefit.

Boeing X37B, US Top Secret Spy Plane lands after 674 days in Orbit

This June 16, 2012 file image from video made available by the Vandenberg Air Force Base shows an infrared view of the Boeing X-37B unmanned spacecraft landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base. 

The purpose of the U.S. military's space plane is classified, only fueling speculation about why it has been orbiting Earth for nearly two years on this, its third mission. 

The plane is expected to land this week at a Southern California Air Force base. 

Credit: AP Photo /Vandenberg Air Force Base

A top-secret space plane landed Friday at an Air Force base on the Southern California coast.

The plane spent nearly two years circling Earth on a classified mission. Known as the Boeing X-37B, it resembles a mini space shuttle.

It safely touched down at 9:24 a.m. Friday, officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base said.

Just what the plane was doing during its 674 days in orbit has been the subject of sometimes spectacular speculation.

Several experts have theorized it carried a payload of spy gear in its cargo bay.

Other theories sound straight out of a James Bond film, including that the spacecraft would be able to capture the satellites of other nations or shadow China's space lab.

In a written release announcing the return of the craft, the Air Force only said it had been conducting "on-orbit experiments."

The Boeing X-37B program has been an orphan of sorts, bouncing since its inception in 1999 between several federal agencies, NASA among them. It now resides under the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office.

The plane that landed Friday is one of two built by Boeing. This is the program's third mission, and began in December 2012.

The plane stands 9 1/2 feet tall and is just over 29 feet long, with a wingspan under 15 feet. It weighs 11,000 pounds and has solar panels that unfurl to charge its batteries once in orbit.

The Air Force said it plans to launch the fourth Boeing X-37B mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, next year.

NISAR: NASA and ISRO Collaboration on Mars Exploration

This stunning view of Mars from India's Mangalyaan spacecraft was released on Sept. 29, 2014, less than a week after the orbiter arrived at the planet.

Credit: ISRO

India's recent Mars success appears to have turned some heads.

NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will investigate ways to collaborate on future missions to Mars, officials said Tuesday (Sept. 30).

The announcement comes just one week after India put its first-ever Mars probe in orbit around the Red Planet, becoming just the fourth entity, after the United States, the Soviet Union and the European Space Agency, to do so.

NASA and ISRO also signed an agreement Tuesday that lays out their respective roles on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, which is scheduled to launch to Earth orbit in 2020 to study the consequences of climate change on a fine scale.

"The signing of these two documents reflects the strong commitment NASA and ISRO have to advancing science and improving life on Earth," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "This partnership will yield tangible benefits to both our countries and the world."



Bolden and ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan signed the two agreements Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress meeting in Toronto.

The Mars document sets up a NASA-ISRO Mars working group, which will meet once a year to identify and plan out joint activities, which could at some point include a cooperative mission to the Red Planet, NASA officials said.

An artist's concept of the planned NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), satellite in orbit, showing the large deployable mesh antenna, solar panels and radar electronics attached to the spacecraft. 

The mission is a partnership between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Also up for discussion, they added, will be possible ways to coordinate the science activities of India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) probe and NASA's MAVEN spacecraft (short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), which arrived at the Red Planet on Sept. 21, just a week before MOM did.

The NISAR mission will employ two different radar frequencies, known as L-band and S-band, to measure and study small surface changes around the globe, officials said.

The new agreement specifies that NASA will provide NISAR's L-band system, a data-communication subsystem and some other gear; ISRO will be responsible for the body of the spacecraft, the S-band system, the rocket and launch services, NASA officials said.

NASA and ISRO have a history of working together. Under an agreement signed in 2008, for example, NASA provided two science payloads for India's Chandrayaan-1 moon mission, which spotted signs of water ice near the lunar north pole after launching in 2008.

WEGA fusion experiment passed on to the US

The first cables were disconnected in June: For 12 years young scientists were trained on WEGA, the Wendelstein-Experiment in Greifswald für die Ausbildung (Wendelstein Experiment in Greifswald for Training). 

Meanwhile the small stellarator is all packed away in crates and is on its way to new objectives in the USA. 

Credit: IPP, Iris Wessolowski

The small WEGA fusion device at Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald is being handed over to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

The "Wendelstein-Experiment in Greifswald für die Ausbildung" (Wendelstein Experiment in Greifswald for Training) is making room for the Wendelstein 7-X large-scale device.

Urbana is succeeding Greifswald, Stuttgart and Grenoble as fourth site for the sturdy device.

WEGA has been in operation at IPP Greifswald since 2001. The small, but versatile fusion device was used for training students and young scientific personnel to bridge the time till completion of the Wendelstein 7-X large-scale device.

At the end of 2013 its time was up and WEGA had to be shut down; its place was needed for setting up the technical equipment for Wendelstein 7-X.

"This was a good opportunity for the University of Illinois", states the division head responsible at IPP, Professor Dr. Robert Wolf.

"It was just at this time that the Center for Plasma Material Interactions (CPMI) were looking for a small plasma device."

The transfer agreement was signed by IPP in mid-September 2014. Illinois are taking the responsibility and meeting the cost of dismantling WEGA, transporting it to the USA and re-assembling it at CPMI.

Under its new name, HIDRA (Hybrid Illinois Device for Research and Applications), the device will continue to be used for plasma physics and fusion research.

"We were very fortunate", says CPMI Director Professor David Ruzic, who sees numerous application possibilities for the device, including in particular investigation of the interaction between the plasma and wall material of the plasma vessel.

The objective of fusion research is to develop a power plant that, like the sun, derives energy from fusion of atomic nuclei.

Transfer of WEGA is one of several constituents of American-German collaboration around Wendelstein 7-X.

"At the age of almost 40 years, WEGA is certainly one of the longest-living fusion experiments, if not the longest ever", says Professor Wolf, who together with the WEGA team is happy that the sturdy device still has a future.

"In presumably three weeks it will start out on its hitherto longest journey, this time even across the Atlantic."

Russian Observation satellite Kosmos-2495: Fireball observed over US

The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday denied media reports of a Russian military satellite that allegedly exploded above the United States.

Earlier in the day, the American Meteor Society (AMS) published more than 30 reports from alleged eyewitnesses, who claimed they observed a blast of Russia's Kosmos-2495 imaging reconnaissance satellite.



"The Russian satellite group functions normally and is being constantly monitored by the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces," ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.

A map showing the confirmed observations from eyewitnesses. 

Reported observations of the Fireball from New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana (Final viewing directions are shown in red)

Image: Google Earth /Spaceflight101 /AMS

Kosmos-2495 was launched on May 6, 2014.

It was also known as Kobalt-M reconnaissance satellite, an operational member of the Yantar series of Russian satellites.

It weighed 6.6 tonnes, operated on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and was equipped with a film camera.

Russian and American astronauts: ISS Crew return to Earth

Russian doctors help US NASA astronaut Steven Swanson after he returned with two Russian cosmonauts from the International Space Station, near the Kazakhstan city of Zhezkazgan on September 11, 2014

Credit: ROCOSMOS

Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut returned to Earth on Thursday after spending more than six months working together aboard the International Space Station, as tensions between their countries soared over the Ukraine crisis.

Alex Skvortsov

American Steven Swanson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, who left on March 26, landed in the Kazakh steppe at 0223 GMT aboard a Soyuz capsule, the Russian space agency Roscosmos and NASA said in joint statements.

The trio, who worked together in cramped quarters aboard the ISS, smiled broadly, gave thumbs up signs and waved in the sunshine as they spent their first minutes back on the planet.

The three spent a total of "169 days of science and technology research in space, including a record 82 hours of research in a single week" in July, NASA said in a statement.

The crew orbited the Earth more than 2,700 times and travelled more than 71.7 million miles, NASA said.

"One of several key research focus areas during Expedition 40 was human health management for long duration space travel as NASA and Roscosmos prepare for two crew members to spend one year aboard the orbiting laboratory in 2015," it said.

The ISS is now being commanded by Russian Cosmonaut Max Suraev, with crewmates Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency.

Three new crew members, Barry Wilmore of NASA and Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova of Roscosmos, are due to arrive in two weeks, blasting off from Kazakhstan on September 25.

Elena Serova is the first Russian female cosmonaut to serve as an ISS crew member.

Amid the political tensions in Ukraine, NASA announced, in April, that it was cutting space cooperation with Russia over Moscow's Ukraine policies, but that work at the space station would not be affected.

Use of the space station depends very much on Russia, which is the only country with the capability of reliably transporting astronauts and cosmonauts to and from the facility.

The ISS was launched in 1998 as an international effort and has been a symbol of cooperation, particularly between the US (NASA), Russia (ROCOSMOS), Europe (ESA) and Japan (JAXA).

Aerial shot of the Expedition 40 Soyuz TMA-12M landing site.

Credit: ROCOSMOS 

US-Russian ISS Space Crew Returns to Earth Tonight

Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov (center), Soyuz commander; NASA astronaut Steve Swanson (left), Expedition 40 commander; and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, flight engineer, conduct a suit leak check in their Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft ahead of a return home from the International Space Station set for Sept. 10, 2014.

Credit: NASA

A trio of space travelers will return to Earth tonight (Sept. 10) to end a months-long expedition to the International Space Station, and you can watch the landing live online.

American astronaut Steve Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev are due to land their Russian-built Soyuz space capsule on the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan at 10:23 p.m. EDT (0243 Sept. 11 GMT), after more than five months in orbit.

You can watch the space crew's landing on Space.com in a live webcast provided by NASA. The webcast will include a series of broadcasts for each stage of the landing.

The landing webcast begins at 3:15 p.m. EDT (1915 GMT) with a farewell ceremony, then resumes at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) for live views of undocking. The landing coverage will begin at 9:15 p.m. EDT (0115 GMT).

Swanson and his crewmates launched to the International Space Station on March 25, with Swanson commanding the outpost's Expedition 40 mission. Three other station crewmembers — NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, cosmonaut Maxim Suarev and German astronaut Alexander Gerst — arrived at the station in late May.

"We've accomplished a lot. We've had a lot of fun," Swanson said Tuesday (Sept. 9) as he handed control of the space station over to Suarev. "This was a team effort. We got together and did it as a team.

During the Expedition 40 mission, the station astronauts and cosmonauts watched over a flurry of robotic cargo ship arrivals and departures by Russian, European and commercial American spacecraft. Skvortsov and Artemyev performed two spacewalks, and tossed a tiny Peruvian satellite into space on their second excursion.

Swanson made a bit of space history by becoming the first astronaut to post Instagram photos from space. And then there were the science experiments. Many, many experiments.

"We actually set the record for the number of hours of science in a week," Swanson said.

The return of Swanson, Skvortsov and Artemyev tonight will mark the official start of Expedition 41 on the International Space Station. Suarev will command that mission.

ISS: Russia and US have resumed talks on new joint projects

Russia and the US have resumed talks on new joint projects regarding the International Space Station (ISS).

The statement comes from Oleg Orlov, First Deputy Director of the Institute for Medico-Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Oleg Orlov said this refers to the conduct of joint research and joint use of the equipment installed in the Russian and American modules of the space station.

"Roscosmos (Federal Space Agency) has set a task of intensifying the scientific program being implemented aboard the ISS. We are ready for that."

"Specifically, together with the American partners, we discuss the possibility of consolidating the resources of the Russian and American segments of the ISS to render part of research a joint one.

"Scientists could use the technical resources available on board on our side and on the partners' one. It is possible to speak of more actively drawing the crew into the research program".

Russia's Vice-Premier Dmitry Rogozin stated in mid-May that the Russian Federation after 2020 would channel its resources into new, more promising space projects than the ISS.

Later, he added that Russia did not visualise a commercial sense in participating in the ISS project after 2020 because "this eats up more than one-third of Roscosmos budget".

"We do not pull out (of the ISS program) but it (the Station) was designed to operate until 2020 and until the target year we stick to our international commitments and also get contractual money for the delivery of American and European astronauts," he explained.

"We have great doubts about whether to extend or not to extend (the program) until 2024," Rogozin added.

Russian, German and US astronauts dock with ISS

A crew of Russian, German and US astronauts docked with the International Space Station Thursday as space cooperation between Moscow and the West continues despite their worst standoff since the Cold War.

"At 5:44 am Moscow time (01:44 GMT), the manned Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft docked successfully with the ISS," the Russian space agency Roskosmos said in a statement.

Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev, his NASA colleague Reid Wiseman and German Alexander Gerst from the European Space Agency opened the hatch into the ISS just over two hours later, Russian mission control said on its website.

Grinning broadly, they hugged the crew of three already on board the international space laboratory, US astronaut Steve Swanson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev.

The Soyuz craft had blasted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on schedule shortly before midnight Moscow time.

The astronauts took a six-hour fast-track route to the ISS after the previous crew to travel to the ISS in March was forced to spend two days in orbit due to a technical glitch.

The new ISS crewmembers are due to carry out a mission lasting 167 days and return to Earth in November.

Surayev, 42, is on his second lengthy ISS mission after his maiden voyage in 2009, when he became the first Russian space blogger. Wiseman and Gerst, who are both 38, are on their first space mission.

US test-fires Aegis missile defence system destined for Europe - Video

A previous test of the Aegis missile defence system, a version of which is to be stationed in Europe by the US and Nato. 

Photograph: AP

The United States has announced the first live firing test of a missile interceptor destined to be stationed initially in Romania and then elsewhere in Europe.

The test of the system, known as Aegis, comes amid tensions between Nato and Russia over the annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.

The Obama administration's current European Phased Adaptive Approach calls for the first Aegis Ashore site to be operational in Romania in 2015, with a second site to follow in Poland in 2018.


The test at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Hawaii late on Tuesday marked a significant milestone for the system, which is designed to protect US and Nato forces in Europe from a ballistic missile attack.

A Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, said the test "is important because it's similar to the system that's being shipped to Romania for deployment by the end of next year".

During the test the Aegis system used on US warships around the world detected, tracked and engaged a simulated ballistic missile target using Raytheon's Standard Missile 3 Block IB, according to the US Missile Defence Agency and the companies.

Lockheed said it was the first test of the Aegis system using a land-based missile launcher.

Riki Ellison, founder of the non-profit Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance, said the test meant Nato's missile defence shield, developed at a cost of around US$800m, was becoming a reality.

He said the Aegis missile defence system had achieved 28 successful test intercepts over the past 11 years.

Shipment of components required for the facility that will house the Aegis Ashore weapon in Romania, including the deckhouse, radar and vertical launch system, would begin this summer, said Missile Defence Agency spokesman Rick Lehner. Interceptors would follow when the facility was built, he said.

The land-based system uses the same SM-3 missile deployed on Aegis warships and holds 24 SM-3 missiles at one time. The system could be expanded to hold more launchers and missiles, Raytheon said.

Russia has previously criticised US plans to put missile defence systems in nearby countries and the Obama administration subsequently scaled back the programme, which had originally included ground-based radar and interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Russian-US ISS crew blast off from Kazakhstan - Arrival Delayed

A crew of two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut blasted off Tuesday from Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket for the International Space Station, with US-Russia space cooperation continuing amicably, despite the diplomatic standoff over Ukraine.

Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev along with Steve Swanson of NASA took off in a spectacular night-time launch at the start of a fast-track six-hour journey to the orbiting laboratory, where they will spend half a year.

All the stages of the launch went without a hitch and the Soyuz capsule successfully went into the correct orbit.

Docking with the ISS was expected at 03:04 GMT Wednesday but this has been delayed until 07:58 Thursday.

After the retirement of the US shuttle, NASA is for now wholly reliant on Russia for delivering astronauts to the space station on its tried-and-trusted Soyuz launch and capsule system.

Space officials have made clear that space cooperation, one of the few areas of genuine mutual work between Russia and the United States, will continue unaffected by the mounting diplomatic strains that have seen the US impose sanctions on Russian officials over Moscow's seizure of Crimea.

A yellow toy duck nicknamed "quack" given to Swanson by his daughter hung in the cockpit and started floating a few minutes into launch as the crew started to experience weightlessness.

-'We'll live together peacefully'-

Arrival Delayed
The next trio of crew members destined for the International Space Station is now looking forward to a Thursday arrival at the orbiting laboratory after their Soyuz spacecraft was unable to complete its third thruster burn to fine-tune its approach. 

Flight controllers in the Mission Control Center outside Moscow are now reverting to a backup 34-orbit rendezvous, which would result in an arrival and docking at 7:58 p.m. EDT Thursday, March 27.

US to launch production of Russian RD-180 rocket engines

The US Air Force is studying the possibility of launching the licensed production of Russian RD-180 rocket engines in the United States.

The US will begin assessing the licensed production of such engines in the next few weeks.

The Russian-made RD-180 rocket engine is one of the few high-tech Russian products that are in demand in the United States.

The engines are manufactured by the Energomash Russian power engineering corporation.

In the United States, the RD Amross joint venture adapts the engines for use in the heavy Atlas-V launch systems.

RD-180 rocket engines is one half of the RD-170 four-nozzle engine, which was designed for the first stage of the Energiaheavy-lift expandable launch system decades ago.

In 1996, the RD-180 project won the tender for developing and delivering the first stage engine for an updated PH Atlas rocket, manufactured by the US Lockheed Martin Corporation.

The development of the engine, based on the series-produced RD-170/171, helped Energomash survive the hardest years for Russian rocket-building companies, - from the mid-1990s to the mid-zeros.

An agreement was signed in 1997 on the delivery to the United States of 101 RD-180 rocket engines until the end of 2018.

By late last year, Energomash had supplied to the US more than 70 rocket engines for 10 million dollars each, which accounted for a sizeable part of the corporation's revenues, - more than a third, according to some estimates.

Given that the supply of engines to the home market yielded hardly any profit at the time, it is safe to claim that the RD-180 rocket engines programme kept the corporation out of bankruptcy.

ATLAS EELV Family

Political complications
The agreement with the United States has been performed by 75% (?).

However, the US is not about to stop using its Atlas rockets, which will call for extending the agreement.

Russia considered the cessation of deliveries of RD-180 rocket engines to the United States in summer 2013 since the US has been using its Atlas-V launch systems to place defence-related devices into orbit.

Although no decision was made, but the fact that Russia considered stopping supplies, the US decided to overhaul its space launch programme.

According to one option, Washington could launch the series licensed production of RD-180 rocket engines in the United States but the option obviously suffers from a couple of flaws; the cost of the engine is estimated to grow by approximately 50% and; a licensed agreement per se and the supply of key engine components from Russia call for trust-based relations between the two countries.

The full-cycle production of RD-180 rocket engines in the United States would prove a guarantee against any risks, of course, but Russia is hardly prepared to accept that and, besides, the expenditures will be comparable to the spending on the designing of a new engine.

US NASA and France CNES sign deal for 2016 Mars lander - Video

This artist's concept depicts the stationary NASA Mars lander known by the acronym InSight at work studying the interior of Mars. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The United States and France Monday unveiled plans to collaborate on a new Mars mission, two years after NASA withdrew from a European partnership to send a probe and lander to the Red Planet.

The project aims to send an unmanned lander to study the deep interior of the dry, dusty planet that is Earth's neighbour, and will be called InSight, short for the Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport.


The agreement was signed by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the National Center of Space Studies of France (CNES) at the Mandarin Hotel in Washington.

The mission is scheduled to launch in March 2016 and would arrive on Mars six months later.

"The research generated by this collaborative mission will give our agencies more information about the early formation of Mars, which will help us understand more about how Earth evolved," said Bolden.

Not only would the lander return details about how Mars, a rocky planet like Earth, first formed, it would also probe the how tectonic activity and meteorite impacts shaped the Red Planet.

Other partners on the project's science instruments include; DLR, the German Aerospace Center, United Kingdom Space Agency, and the Swiss Space Office.

The deal comes two years after NASA, citing budget constraints, killed a partnership with European Space Agency (ESA) on project ExoMars.

NASA's Aqua Sees Massive US Winter Storm

On January 2, 2014, NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over the United States multiple times, allowing the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board to capture this true-colour image of a massive winter storm moving up the eastern seaboard. 

Another image taken the same day by the GOES-13 satellite shows moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cold air from Canada moving across the U.S. (Shown below)

Very cold temperatures and dangerous wind chills are moving in behind the system. 

The next storm is forming, and will bring blizzard conditions to the northern Plains Friday Night into Saturday. 

Extreme wind chills to -55 F are possible in the northern Plains this weekend. 

Credit: NASA/NOAA

NASA ISS Astronauts record US Thanksgiving message - Video

Aboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins, both Expedition 38 flight engineers, send down their best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving.

Pentagon trying to block construction of GLONASS stations in US

The US Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency have been trying to persuade the US State Department not to allow Roscosmos to build several GLONASS ground-based measuring stations in the United States, alleging that they could be used for military purposes.

They fear that the structures could help Russia spy on the United States and improve the precision of Russian weaponry, the officials said.

These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow's version of the Global Positioning System, the American satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and thirsty smartphone users to the nearest Starbucks.

The Pentagon argues that if the State Department sanctions the GLONASS station deployments, Russia might be able to increase the accuracy of its guided missiles and could also use them for intelligence activity from inside US borders.

The arguments have prompted the White House to postpone decision-making on the issue until Russia provides further information, according to anonymous sources in the US Administration and Department of State.

US congressman Michel Rogers, who earlier requested the Pentagon's estimates of the consequences of deploying GLONASS stations for US national security, said he didn't understand why the US should be interested in encouraging GLONASS, a competitor to the American GPS system, when the use of GPS worldwide gives the US obvious advantages in many respects.

Moscow rejects the suggestion that the structures have anything to do with surveillance operations, contending they are designed to improve the accuracy of Russia's version of the Global Positioning System (GPS), the American satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and helps with navigation.

"They don't want to be reliant on the American system and believe that their systems, like GPS, will spawn other industries and applications," said a former senior official in the State Department's Office of Space and Advanced Technology.

The monitor stations have been a high priority for Russian President Vladimir Putin for several years as a means of improving Glonass, not just to benefit the Russian military and civilian sectors but also to compete globally with GPS.

Earlier this year, Russia positioned a Glonass station in Brazil and agreements with Spain, Indonesia and Australia are expected soon, according to Russian news reports. The United States has stations around the world but none in Russia.

In May 2012, Moscow requested that the United States allow the ground-monitoring stations on American soil.

American technical and diplomatic officials have met several times to discuss the issue and have asked Russian officials for more information, said Ms. Harf, the State Department spokeswoman.

ISS Astronauts Take Time Off for US Labour Day Holiday

Five of the six Expedition 36 crew members are pictured in the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory during a daily planning conference. 

Pictured from bottom left are European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, both flight engineers; Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, commander; NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, both flight engineers. 

Credit: NASA

Americans across the United States will pause to celebrate the Labor Day holiday on Monday (Sept. 2), even space travelers soaring high above Earth aboard the International Space Station.

There are two American astronauts — NASA's Karen Nyberg and Chris Cassidy — currently serving on the space station's six-person crew, and they are expecting a light work day Monday, NASA officials said.

While station astronauts typically take a break from their usual duties on holidays, they still may need to do a little work.

Nyberg and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano might take part in a quick training session to prepare for the arrival of an unmanned cargo-carrying Cygnus spacecraft, NASA spokesman Josh Byerly told reporters.

The Cygnus capsule is scheduled to launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., atop an Antares rocket on Sept. 17.

It will mark the first Cygnus test flight to International Space Station.

The unmanned cargo ship was built by the commercial spaceflight company Orbital Sciences Corp.

But aside from Cygnus training, Nyberg and the rest of the station's Expedition 36 crew will likely have the chance to chat with their loved ones in honor of the U.S. holiday.

Space station residents can call their families whenever they have time and they can send emails and video link with the ground.

This year's Labor Day in space should be more subdued than last year's holiday. In 2012, astronauts on the space station were prepping for an extra spacewalk after a sticky bolt prevented NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese (JAXA) spaceflyer Akihiko Hoshide from replacing a faulty piece of hardware on the outside of the station.

The station is about the size of a five bedroom house has the wingspan of a football field. Construction of the station began in 1998 and it has been continuously staffed with crews of spaceflyers since 2000.

US Laser weapon to be mounted on USS Navy warship Ponce - Video

The US Navy has released a video of a laser weapon it says will be stationed on US warship Ponce in the Middle East, despite reports it has problems working in bad weather.

The weapon runs on electricity and can fire as long as there is power, at a cost of $1 dollar per shot. Military experts claim it is a step towards transforming warfare.

However, a report from the Congressional Research Service says there are drawbacks, including the potential that it could hit satellites or aircraft and may not work in rain or foggy conditions.

The laser weapon will be installed on USS Ponce which is being used as a floating base in the Middle East in 2014.