ESA Rosetta Philae completes science mission before shutdown

Philae's first touchdown seen by Rosetta's NavCam

Rosetta’s lander has completed its primary science mission after nearly 57 hours on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

After being out of communication visibility with the lander since 09:58 GMT / 10:58 CET on Friday, Rosetta regained contact with Philae at 22:19 GMT /23:19 CET last night.

The signal was initially intermittent, but quickly stabilised and remained very good until 00:36 GMT / 01:36 CET this morning.

In that time, the lander returned all of its housekeeping data, as well as science data from the targeted instruments, including ROLIS, COSAC, Ptolemy, SD2 and CONSERT.

This completed the measurements planned for the final block of experiments on the surface.

ESA ATV-5 George Lemaître makes its final ISS delivery - video

Highlights from the docking of ATV Georges Lemaître to the International Space Station.

The fifth and final Automated Transfer Vehicle docked with the ISS at 13:30 UTC/15:30 CEST on 12 August 2014.

The vehicle carried 6602 kg of freight, including 2680 kg of dry cargo and 3921 kg of water, propellants and gases.

ESA Herschel Survey: Completion largest census of dust in local galaxies

Collage of galaxies in the Herschel Reference Survey at infrared /submillimetre wavelengths by Herschel (left) and at visible wavelengths from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS, right).

The Herschel image is coloured with blue representing cold dust and red representing warm dust; the SDSS image shows young stars in blue and old stars in red. 

Together, the observations plot young, dust-rich spiral/irregular galaxies in the top left, with giant dust-poor elliptical galaxies in the bottom right.

ESA /Herschel /HRS-SAG2 and HeViCS Key Programmes /Sloan Digital Sky Survey / L. Cortese (Swinburne University)

The largest census of dust in local galaxies has been completed using data from ESA’s Herschel space observatory, providing a huge legacy to the scientific community.

Cosmic dust grains are a minor but fundamental ingredient in the recipe of gas and dust for creating stars and planets but despite its importance, there is an incomplete picture of the dust properties in galaxies beyond our own Milky Way.

Key questions include how the dust varies with the type of galaxy, and how it might affect our understanding of how galaxies evolve.

Before concluding its observations in April 2013, Herschel provided the largest survey of cosmic dust, spanning a wide range of nearby galaxies located 50–80 million light-years from Earth.

The catalogue contains 323 galaxies with varying star formation activity and different chemical compositions, observed by Herschel’s instruments across far-infrared and submillimetre wavelengths.

A sample of these galaxies is displayed in a collage, arranged from dust-rich in the top left to dust-poor in the bottom right.

The dust-rich galaxies are typically spiral or irregular, whereas the dust-poor ones are usually elliptical.

Blue and red colours represent cooler and warmer regions of dust, respectively.

Dust is gently heated across a range of temperatures by the combined light of all of the stars in each galaxy, with the warmest dust being concentrated in regions where stars are being born.

For comparison, the galaxies are also shown in visible light images obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey SDSS.

Here, blue corresponds to young stars – hot, massive stars that burn through their fuel very quickly and are therefore short-lived.

Conversely, red stars are older population – they are less massive and cooler, and therefore live for longer.

The Herschel observations allow astronomers to determine how much light is emitted by the dust as a function of wavelength, providing a means to study the physical properties of the dust.

ISS Astronauts repeat spacewalk to complete Urthecast camera job

Two Russian space station astronauts took a spacewalk Monday to complete a camera job left unfinished last month.

Oleg Kotov

Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy quickly got one of two commercially provided cameras installed outside the International Space Station, a task requiring multiple power connections.

Everything checked out well, unlike the spacewalk last month.

The two men worked so hard that Russian Mission Control outside Moscow urged them to "get your breath."

"We'll force ourselves to rest," one of the spacewalkers replied in Russian.

The astronauts had hooked up the Earth-observing cameras during a spacewalk after Christmas but ground controllers received no data from the cameras, and the spacewalkers had to haul everything back in.

The problem was traced to indoor cabling and fixed, according to NASA.

Sergey Ryazanskiy

This time, after the spacewalkers reattached the high-definition camera to the outside of the Russian portion of the space station, good electrical connectivity was reported between the instrument and Russian Mission Control.

NASA spokesman Rob Navias said Russian flight controllers were pleased with the results.

Next, Kotov and Ryazanskiy tackled the medium-resolution camera.

Images from these new cameras will be distributed by the Canadian company that owns them, UrtheCast Corp.

The cameras were launched to the space station in November in a deal between UrtheCast and the Russian Space Agency.

UrtheCast will post video on its website and sell images. The company expects it will take three months to calibrate the cameras, and that the system should be fully operational by summer.

The four other space station astronauts—two Americans, one Japanese and another Russian—monitored the spacewalk from inside.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft: Completion of Parachute Jettison Tests

A test version of NASA’s Orion spacecraft touches down in the Arizona desert after its most complicated parachute test to date. 

Image Credit: NASA

Engineers testing the parachute system for NASA's Orion spacecraft increased the complexity of their tests Thursday, Jan. 16, adding the jettison of hardware designed to keep the capsule safe during flight.

The test was the first to give engineers in-air data on the performance of the system that jettisons Orion's forward bay cover.

The cover is a shell that fits over Orion's crew module to protect the spacecraft during launch, orbital flight and re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

When Orion returns from space, the cover must come off before the spacecraft's parachutes can deploy. It must be jettisoned high above the ground in order for the parachutes to unfurl.

Mark Geyer

"This was a tough one," said Mark Geyer, Orion program manager.

"We'd done our homework, of course, but there were elements here that could only be tested in the air, with the entire system working together."

"It's one of the most complicated tests that we'll do, so we were all excited to see it work just as it was meant to."