NASA Grail Twin Probes Final Flight Path

The NASA GRAIL twin probes' final flight path into their crash site, imaged with data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/ASU

Two space probes that successfully mapped variations in the Moon's gravity field have been deliberately crashed into the lunar surface in a dramatic end to their mission.

They are just the latest in a string of probes to leave their shattered remains on the Moon. The impacts of the GRAIL probes, Ebb and Flow, into a 2.4 km high (1.5 miles) mountain near the lunar north pole, was deliberate and planned in great detail.

NASA decided to destroy the craft in a controlled manoeuvre rather than take the risk, however tiny, that they might later hit one of the historic landing sites of Apollo and unmanned probes.

The two spacecraft, each the size of a washing machine, fired their thrusters one last time to burn up the last of their fuel. They dropped into a lower orbit and hit the peak's southern face, near a crater called Goldschmidt, at 6,050 kph (3,760 mph).

Texas drought exposes doomed NASA Shuttle Columbia debris

The prolonged drought in Texas has revealed what NASA says is a tank from the space shuttle Columbia, which broke apart over east Texas as it re-entered the atmosphere in 2003.

Greg Sowell, a police sergeant in the city of Nacogdoches, which is located about 160 miles (250 kilometers) northeast of Houston, said the waters of Lake Nacogdoches, which are falling due to the record drought which has gripped the state, revealed an unexpected object.

"We found a large, about four-foot-diameter, round, what appears to be a tank of some sort," Sowell said Tuesday. "We have reason to believe this may be a part of the Columbia space shuttle."

The police department sent photos of the object to NASA for review, and experts at the space agency confirmed that the object was a power reactant storage and distribution tank. Such tanks are used aboard the shuttle to store cryogenic fuel for electrical power during flight.

Lisa Malone, a spokeswoman at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, told msnbc.com that Columbia carried 18 of the tanks for its 16-day mission.

Columbia broke apart upon re-entry into the atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003, killing the seven crew members on board. Debris from the spacecraft, which disintegrated over a wide area of east Texas, has been found in about 2,000 locations across eastern Texas and western Louisiana, including in Nacogdoches.

"Due to the drought, Lake Nacogdoches is at an approximately 9-foot low," Sowell said. "There has been an unusually large area of the lake which is normally underwater which has been exposed."

Sowell noted that space shuttle debris is considered government property, and that tampering with such objects is a criminal offense.

Malone said NASA and local authorities were working out a plan for recovering the tank and bringing it to Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building, where previously recovered pieces from Columbia — including other fuel-cell tanks — are being stored under climate-controlled conditions.

Airbus plunged vertically into ocean at high speed

pa.press.net

The Air France Airbus which crashed into the Atlantic killing 228 people plunged vertically into the ocean intact and at high speed, investigators have said.

Alain Bouillard, leading the investigation into the crash on June 1 said the plane's speed sensors, called pitot tubes, were not the direct cause of the crash but a factor in it.

Announcing initial findings of the crash inquiry in Paris, he admitted: "Today we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident."

The Airbus A330-200 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went down in a remote area of the Atlantic, 930 miles off Brazil's mainland and far from radar coverage.

The French investigation agency BEA called it one of history's most challenging plane crash investigations.

One of the automatic messages sent by the plane indicates it was receiving incorrect speed information from the external monitoring instruments, which could destabilise the its control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over.

Mr Bouillard said the plane "was not destroyed in flight".

"The plane seems to have hit the surface of the water on its flight trajectory with a strong vertical acceleration," he said, adding that investigators had found "neither traces of fire nor traces of explosives".

Mr Bouillard said life vests found among the wreckage were not inflated, suggesting the passengers were not prepared for a crash landing in the water. The pilots apparently also did not send any mayday calls.

A burst of automated messages emitted by the plane before it fell gave rescuers only a vague location to begin their search, which has failed to locate the plane's black boxes in the vast ocean.

The chances of finding the flight recorders are falling daily as the signals they emit fade. Without them, the full causes of the accident may never be known.

Airbus A340-600 Crash Site - Concealed?

A brand new Airbus A340-600 sits sparkling on the runway in Toulouse, France, awaiting inspection and approval by its new owners.



The Airbus A340-600 is the very pinnacle of luxury at a very high price. Around $200 million dollars before tax!



.....but who would not pay that kind of money for this level of luxury. It is head and shoulders above cut price pirates and Virgin Atlantic!



......but wait something seems to have happened to the aircraft. It seems suddenly bent out of shape? How can that be? Maybe its a camera trick or something.



No! This is one broken aircraft. Looking like Humpty Dumpty broken on the wall. How could that happen. Did someone leave the hand-brake off?



What's that you say? The new owner sent over an untrained crew and they put the engines in full throttle to test them and then disengaged the safety alarms.

This, effectively let off the brakes and the aircraft accelerated forward and crashed into the wall. Sssh! you cannot tell anyone because its a secret!

Apparently the owner, the crew (if they survived?) and EADS Airbus are very embarassed by the whole incident. Maybe that's why it didn't appear in the news. Are they still looking for the cause of the crash off Brazil? Did someone say they were flying too slow in the rain?