NASA Orion Heat Shield glows red as Spacecraft re-enters Earth Atmosphere

Entry interface confirmed. The Orion spacecraft is falling back into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 400,000 feet.

Credit: NASA

ESA Venus Express: ESOC have lost contact with Spacecraft

Artist's impression of Venus Express 

Credit: ESA (Image by AOES Medialab)

On 28 November 2014, the flight control team at ESOC reported loss of contact with Venus Express (VEX).

It is possible that the remaining fuel on board VEX was exhausted during the recent periapsis-raising manoeuvres and that the spacecraft is no longer in a stable attitude (the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna must be kept pointed toward Earth to ensure reliable radio contact).

Repeated attempts to re-establish contact using ESA and NASA deep-space tracking stations have been made since then, and there has been some limited success in the period since 3 December.

Although a stable telemetry link is not available, some telemetry packets were successfully downlinked.

These confirm that the spacecraft is oriented with its solar arrays pointing toward the Sun, and is rotating slowly.

The operations team is currently attempting to downlink the table of critical events that is stored in protected memory on board, which may give details of the sequence of events which occurred over the past few days.

The root cause of the anomaly (fuel situation or otherwise) remains to be established.

ESA will provide an update as soon as something more concrete is known.

NASA Orion Spacecraft takes a big step towards the launch pad

Inside the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a crane brings the fourth and final Ogive panel closer for installation on Orion's Launch Abort System. 

The panels will smooth the airflow over the conical spacecraft to limit sound and vibration.

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Kevin Rivers was nothing but giddy as he stood behind the closed door of the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, waiting to see the Orion spacecraft that will one day send humans on the journey to Mars.

After just a few minutes that seemed like a lifetime, Rivers, the Launch Abort System project manager, walked through the facility door.

There before him stood the 80-foot high Orion spacecraft being readied for its December flight test with the four recently-installed protective panels that make up the Ogive.

The Ogive reduces drag and acoustic load on the crew module, making it a smoother ride for the spacecraft.

“What my colleagues and I were able to witness was a significant historical point in our efforts to move beyond low-Earth orbit and explore past the moon,” Rivers said.

On Dec. 4, Orion is scheduled to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37 in Florida.

During the test, Orion will travel 3,600 miles in altitude above Earth. 4 1/2 hours later, the spacecraft will reenter the atmosphere at 20,000 mph and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.

Orion’s first flight will verify launch and high-speed reentry systems such as avionics, attitude control, parachutes and the heat shield.

Barry Meredith, who works with Rivers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, expressed a similar awe. “Orion’s flight test is a major step toward exploring beyond low-Earth orbit,” he said.

“Though a crew will not occupy the first flight, it’s really critical that we test the spacecraft systems.”

The Ogive installation was one of the last pieces of the puzzle for Orion prior to its move to the launch pad on Nov. 10.

There, it will be lifted and attached to the rocket for its December launch.

“There is much effort and preparation for such a momentous occasion,” said Langley engineer Jose Ortiz.

“There are many disciplines, geographically dispersed specialties and developments, tests, elaborate analyses, materials characterizations, and other efforts by NASA centers and contractor partners. The nationwide effort is aimed toward one common and challenging goal in mind: human spaceflight.”

Orion is managed out of NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Texas, and the Launch Abort System project is managed out of Langley.

NASA centers and industry partners from across the country have also played a critical role in the design, development and testing of Orion.

NASA MESSENGER: Spacecraft finds Water Ice on Mercury

Kandinsky crater lies near Mercury's north pole, and may have hosted water ice. MESSENGER spacecraft's Wide Angle Camera broadband image appears at left, outlined in yellow, and superimposed on an MDIS polar mosaic.

The view on the right shows the same image but with the brightness and contrast adjusted to show details of the crater's shadowed floor. Image released Oct. 15, 2014.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

The first-ever photos of water ice near Mercury's north pole have come down to Earth, and they have quite a story to tell.

The images, taken by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft (short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging), suggest that the ice lurking within Mercury's polar craters was delivered recently, and may even be topped up by processes that continue today, researchers said.

More than 20 years ago, Earth-based radar imaging first spotted signs of water ice near Mercury's north and south poles, a surprise, perhaps, given that temperatures on the solar system's innermost planet can top 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius).

The left image shows a view of Berlioz crater, with the areas that contain radar-bright material marked in yellow and persistent shadows marked in red. 

The middle image, acquired a few hours later, shows details within the shadowed crater. 

A distinctively darker region sits on the crater's floor, which corresponds well with the radar-bright and shadowed regions as shown in the right image. Image released Oct. 15, 2014.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

In late 2012, MESSENGER confirmed those observations from orbit around Mercury, discovering ice in permanently shadowed craters near the planet's north pole.

MESSENGER scientists announced the find after integrating results from thermal modeling studies with data gathered by the probe's hydrogen-hunting neutron spectrometer and its laser altimeter, which measured the reflectance of the deposits.

And now the MESSENGER team has captured optical-light images of the ice for the first time, by taking advantage of small amounts of sunlight scattered off the craters' walls.

"There is a lot new to be learned by seeing the deposits," said study lead author Nancy Chabot, instrument scientist for MESSENGER’s Mercury Dual Imaging System and a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, in a statement.

For example, the texture of the ice at the bottom of Mercury's 70-mile-wide (113 kilometers) Prokofiev Crater suggests that the material was put in place relatively recently rather than billions of years ago, researchers said.

Images of other craters back up this notion. They show dark deposits, believed to be frozen organic-rich material, covering ice in some areas, with sharp boundaries between the two different types of material.

"This result was a little surprising, because sharp boundaries indicate that the volatile deposits at Mercury’s poles are geologically young, relative to the time scale for lateral mixing by impacts," Chabot said.

Earth's moon also harbors water ice inside permanently shadowed polar craters, but its deposits look different from those on Mercury, researchers said. This could be because Mercury's ice was delivered more recently.

"If you can understand why one body looks one way and another looks different, you gain insight into the process that's behind it, which in turn is tied to the age and distribution of water ice in the solar system," Chabot said. "This will be a very interesting line of inquiry going forward."

The new study was published online today (Oct. 15) in the journal Geology.

Sierra Nevada Corp (SNC) challenges Boeing and SpaceX spacecraft contract

An interior view of Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft.

Credit: Boeing

Sierra Nevada Corp (SNC) said it had filed a legal challenge to NASA’s award of contracts totaling $6.8 billion to Boeing and SpaceX to build commercially owned and operated “space taxis” to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

NASA had considered a bid by privately owned Sierra Nevada, but U.S. officials said on Tuesday the U.S. space agency had opted to award long-time aerospace contractor Boeing and SpaceX with contracts to develop, certify and fly their seven-person capsules.

SNC said its bid could have saved up to $900 million and that NASA’s statements “indicate that there are serious questions and inconsistencies in the source selection process.”

“SNC, therefore, feels that there is no alternative but to institute a legal challenge,” it added in a statement on Friday.

Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion and SpaceX $2.6 billion. SpaceX is run by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, also chief executive of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors Inc.

“With the current awards, the U.S. government would spend up to $900 million more at the publicly announced contracted level for a space program equivalent to the program that SNC proposed,” Sierra Nevada said.

It said a “thorough review must be conducted of the award decision.”

The space taxis would end U.S. dependence on Russia for rides to the space station.

The contract has taken on new urgency given rising tensions over Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine.

SPIDER: 'Spacecraft' seeks traces of the early universe over Antartica

Constructed primarily in Princeton's Jadwin Hall, SPIDER is a stratospheric spacecraft that in December will begin a 20-day orbit in Earth's stratosphere at an altitude of roughly 110,000 feet.

During that period, SPIDER's six large cameras will look for the pattern, or polarization, of gravitational waves produced by the fluctuation of energy and density that resulted from the Big Bang.

These waves, explained William Jones a Princeton University assistant professor of physics, are a "statistically unique fingerprint" that can be traced back to the beginning of the universe.

Many astronomical instruments measure various characteristics of this fingerprint, SPIDER is designed to characterize the "shape" of it, said Jones, who is the project's principal investigator.

"The ultimate goal of SPIDER is to see to what extent we can identify a very characteristic feature in that polarization that's expected to come from the earliest stages of the evolutionary growth of our universe," Jones said.

"There's a very particular pattern than can be generated only by something like a gravitational wave propagating through the surface of the cosmic microwave background [which is the glow of the heat left over from the Big Bang]," Jones said.

"That is a very particular pattern commonly referred to as a 'pinwheel' pattern on the sky. It's that particular pinwheel pattern that we're really after."

SPIDER, which used to be an acronym, but now is the project's formal name, is a multi-institutional project funded largely by a grant from NASA, as well as the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.

In addition to Princeton, the primary institutions involved are the University of Toronto; Case Western Reserve University; the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a NASA-funded research center managed by Caltech; and the University of British Columbia.

The project was proposed in 2006 while Jones, who joined Princeton's faculty in 2008, was a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

SpaceX Dragon unmanned spacecraft approaches ISS

A contrail is seen behind the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon supply ship as it flies into space after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a resupply mission to the International Space Station, on September 21, 2014

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft was nearing the International Space Station on Tuesday with a cargo of supplies, including freeze-dried meals, 20 live lab mice and a 3D printer.

Germany's Alexander Gerst, an astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA), will operate CanadArm-2, the 57.7-foot (17.6-meter) robotic arm attached to the ISS, to capture the Dragon and bring it in to dock with the space station.

He will be assisted by NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman.

The berthing operation will be complete when the vessel latches fully onto the research outpost about two hours later.

The Dragon capsule is carrying more than 5,000 pounds (2,200 kilograms) of supplies and material for science experiments, including a tool to measure wind speed at the ocean's surface.

The spacecraft launched early Sunday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and is SpaceX's fourth contracted mission with NASA for supply trips to the ISS and back.

The Rodent Research Hardware System, which will be installed at the International Space Station, includes three modules: the habitat at left, the transporter in the middle and the so-called animal access unit at right. 

Credit: NASA / Dominic Hart

The lab mice are the first live mammals to hitch a ride aboard a commercial cargo ship, and they are enclosed in a NASA-made research cage for studying the effects of weightlessness on their bodies.

This Zero-G Printer is the first 3D printer designed to operate in zero gravity. 

Also on board the SpaceX Dragon capsule is this 3D printer experiment.

The printer was built under a joint partnership between NASA MSFC and Made In Space.

Contracted as the “3D Printing in Zero-G Experiment” this first version of the Zero-G printer will usher in the era of off-world manufacturing.

This initial version of the Zero-G Printer will serve as a test bed for understanding the long-term effects of microgravity on 3D printing, and how it can enable the future of space exploration.

SpaceX Dragon V2 Spacecraft: The next generation ISS Crew spacecraft

Meet SpaceX's Dragon V2 spacecraft, the next generation spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to Earth orbit and beyond.

Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX's Crew Dragon will be capable of carrying up to seven crew members, landing under its own propulsion almost anywhere on Earth, and refueling and flying again for rapid reuse.

Dragon was designed from the beginning to carry humans, and the upgraded human-rated vehicle will be one of the safest, most reliable spacecraft ever flown.

The vehicle holds seats for 7 passengers, and includes an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) that provides a comfortable environment for crew members.

Crew Dragon’s powerful launch escape system, the first of its kind, will provide escape capability from the time the crew enters the vehicle all the way to orbit.

Should an emergency occur during launch, eight SuperDraco engines built into the side walls of the Dragon spacecraft will produce up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust to carry astronauts to safety.

This decision builds on SpaceX’s track record of successfully delivering critical cargo and science experiments to the space station for NASA.

The Dragon spacecraft currently resupplies the space station under a $1.6 billion Cargo Resupply Services contract with NASA.

A full press release is available from NASA.

Oleg Ivanovsky: Designer of Yury Gagarin's Vostok spaceship died today

A spaceship designer who worked on Yury Gagarin's Vostok spaceship and was the last to shake his hand before liftoff, Oleg Ivanovsky, died on Thursday at 92, the Russian space agency said.

Ivanovsky was a senior designer at the facility codenamed OKB-1 which built the Vostok spaceship that blasted Gagarin into orbit in 1961.

"He participated directly in preparing the flight of the world's first cosmonaut," Roscosmos said in a statement.

"The last to shake the hand of the world's first cosmonaut before blastoff was Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovsky. After that he closed the hatch of the ship," Roscosmos said, using his patronymic.

Photographs published by Roscosmos show Ivanovsky, a slight man in blue overalls over a shirt and tie, helping Gagarin climb the stairs up to the spaceship and get into his seat.

"I squeezed into the cabin. I hugged him, shook his hand and gave him a slap on the helmet before getting out. A moment later and the hatch swung closed onto its locks," Ivanovsky remembered in a 2007 interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.

A tense moment followed as the chief designer, Sergei Korolyov warned that there was a glitch: the hatch's locks were not registering as hermetically sealed.

Ivanovsky recalled he swiftly had to remove and replace the hatch, attached by 32 bolts, as Gagarin watched him in a mirror sewn onto his sleeve, while quietly whistling a song with the lyrics: "The motherland hears, the motherland knows..."

It turned out later that the hatch was in fact fine—one of the light bulbs at mission control was simply faulty and flashed an error message by mistake, Ivanovsky said.

The engineers had a secret code they planned to use if Gagarin fell unconscious or started raving.

"Out of seven flights of Vostok ships before Gagarin's, only three were successful. And only two returned to Earth. So it was a big risk, of course," he recalled.

"But we did everything we could to make the flight safe according to the level of knowledge and the capabilities we then had."

Ivanovsky was born in Moscow and fought in World War II, taking part in the Victory Parade on Red Square.

After the war, he studied at Moscow Energy Institute. He began working as a senior engineer in spaceship construction in 1957 and later worked on the Soviet Union's unmanned lunar missions.

"He was an incredible person, a hero who lived his life in the name of science and to benefit the motherland," Roscosmos said in a statement.

NASA DAWN: Spacecraft operating normally after safe mode triggered

Artist concept of NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbiting Ceres during an upcoming flyby. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

The Dawn spacecraft has resumed normal ion thrusting after the thrusting unexpectedly stopped and the spacecraft entered safe mode on September 11.

That anomaly occurred shortly before a planned communication with NASA's Deep Space Network that morning.

The spacecraft was not performing any special activities at the time.

Engineers immediately began working to restore the spacecraft to its normal operational state.

The team determined the source of the problems, corrected them, and then resumed normal ion thrusting on Monday night, Sept. 15.

"This anomaly presented the team with an intricate and elaborate puzzle to solve," said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

After investigating what caused the spacecraft to enter safe mode, the Dawn team determined that it was likely triggered by the same phenomenon that affected Dawn three years ago on approach to the protoplanet Vesta: An electrical component in the ion propulsion system was disabled by a high-energy particle of radiation.

"We followed the same strategy that we implemented three years ago to recover from a similar radiation strike, to swap to one of the other ion engines and a different electronic controller so we could resume thrusting quickly," said Dawn Mission Director and Chief Engineer Marc Rayman of JPL.

"We have a plan in place to revive this disabled component later this year."

Complicating the issue, the team discovered that the spacecraft had experienced not just one anomaly, but also a second one that affected the ability to point the main antenna at Earth to communicate.

Because the spacecraft could not communicate using its main antenna, the team had to utilize the weaker signals of another antenna, slowing their progress.

In addition, Dawn is so far from Earth that radio signals take 53 minutes to make the round trip.

Although they have not yet specifically pinpointed the cause of this issue, it could also be explained by a high-energy particle corrupting the software running in the main computer.

Ultimately the team reset the computer, which restored the pointing performance to normal.

As a result of the change in the thrust plan, Dawn will enter into orbit around dwarf planet Ceres in April 2015, about a month later than previously planned.

Ceres

The plans for exploring Ceres once the spacecraft is in orbit, however, are not affected.

Vesta

Dawn orbited Vesta, the second most massive object in the main asteroid belt, from July 2011 until September 2012.

The spacecraft's ion propulsion system enabled it to spiral away from Vesta and head toward Ceres, the most massive object in that region.

NASA MAVEN Spacecraft: Final Preparations For Mars

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft is quickly approaching Mars on a mission to study its upper atmosphere. 

When it arrives on September 21, 2014, MAVEN's winding journey from Earth will culminate with a dramatic engine burn, pulling the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit.

On Sept. 21, 2014, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft will complete roughly 10 months of travel and enter orbit around the Red Planet.

The orbit-insertion maneuver will be carried out as the spacecraft approaches Mars, wrapping up an interplanetary journey of 442 million miles (711 million kilometers).

Six thruster engines will fire briefly for a “settling” burn that damps out deviations in pointing.

Then the six main engines will ignite two by two in quick succession and will burn for 33 minutes to slow the craft, allowing it to be captured in an elliptical orbit.

This milestone will mark the culmination of 11 years of concept and development for MAVEN, setting the stage for the mission’s science phase, which will investigate Mars as no other mission has.

“We’re the first mission devoted to observing the upper atmosphere of Mars and how it interacts with the sun and the solar wind,” said Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator for MAVEN at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

These observations will help scientists determine how much gas from Mars’ atmosphere has been lost to space throughout the planet’s history and which processes have driven that loss.

En route
Procedures to line up MAVEN for proper orbit insertion began shortly after MAVEN launched in November 2013. These included two trajectory-correction maneuvers, performed in December 2013 and February 2014.

Calibration of the mission’s three suites of science instruments, the Particles and Fields Package, the Remote Sensing Package and the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, was completed during the cruise phase to Mars.

“Every day at Mars is gold,” said David Mitchell, MAVEN’s project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“The early checks of instrument and spacecraft systems during cruise phase enable us to move into the science collection phase shortly after MAVEN arrives at Mars.”

The voyage also gave the team an opportunity to take data on the interplanetary solar wind using the Fields and Particles Package.

Meanwhile, teams in California, Colorado and Maryland carried out rehearsals of the entire orbit insertion twice.

The science team also performed a weeklong simulation of the planning and implementation required to obtain science data. Two months prior to arrival at Mars, all instruments were turned off, in preparation for orbit insertion.

Into orbit
During orbit insertion, MAVEN will be controlled by its on-board computers. By that time, the team will have uploaded the most up-to-date information about the spacecraft’s location, velocity and orientation.

The insertion instructions will have been updated, and the fuel valves will be open, to warm the fuel to an operating temperature of about 77 to 79 degrees Fahrenheit (25 to 26 degrees Celsius).

If all goes well, the spacecraft will need no further commands from the ground. The important exception is that final trajectory corrections could be made, if needed, 24 hours or 6 hours prior to insertion.

That would only happen, however, if the navigation team concluded that the spacecraft was coming in at too low of an altitude.

Otherwise, during the last 24 hours, the spacecraft will carry out preprogrammed procedures to make all systems as “quiet” as possible, which is the safest condition for orbit insertion.

These steps include automatically executing a new version of the fault protection, which will tell the craft how to react to an on-board component anomaly leading up to or during orbit insertion.

In addition, the spacecraft will have to reorient itself so that the thrusters are pointed in the correct direction for the burn.

In this final orientation, MAVEN’s high-gain antenna, which is used for most communication with the spacecraft, will point away from Earth.

During that period, MAVEN’s low-gain antenna will be used for limited communication capacity at a reduced data rate.

At last, the insertion will begin. For the next 33 minutes, the craft will burn more than half the fuel onboard as it enters an orbit 236 miles (380 kilometers) above the northern pole.

Three minutes after the engines turn off, the MAVEN computers will reinstate the normal safeguards, reorient the spacecraft to point the high-gain antenna toward Earth, and reestablish normal communications.

At that point, MAVEN will transmit the data obtained during the insertion back to Earth, along with information on the state of the spacecraft, and the MAVEN team will learn if everything worked properly.

“Then, there will be a sigh of relief,” said Carlos Gomez-Rosa, MAVEN mission and science operations manager at Goddard.

Later, the team will upload new instructions for the science portion of the mission, as well as turn on and check out the science instruments.

Intense Solar Eruption Captured by NASA SDO Spacecraft - Video

A huge tendril of super-hot plasma that had been creeping across the face of the sun erupted Tuesday (Sept. 2) in a striking solar storm that may send a wave of charged particles in Earth's direction.

Video of the solar eruption captured by NASA's sun-watching Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a cloud of solar plasma being hurled from the sun's surface during the rippling blast.

Debris from the solar explosion could be traveling in the direction of Earth, according to Spaceweather.com, which tracks stargazing and space weather events.

Further observations should confirm whether the eruption was actually an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection, or CME.

CMEs occur when the sun's magnetic field lines become so warped that they snap like rubber bands then reconnect at other points.

These breaks can leave gaps where the sun's plasma spews into space.

CMEs can occasionally spark geomagnetic storms when they collide with Earth.

These disturbances can interfere with electronics, cause radio blackouts and produce stunning auroras.

In the days before the eruption, the filament of dark plasma looked like a long shadow on the sun that stretched some 372,823 miles (600,000 kilometers), that's more than three times the diameter of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.

Amateur astrophotographers from around the world had been sending Spaceweather.com amazing amazing images of the filament over the past few days.

NASA’s Mars Spacecraft Maneuvers to Prepare for Close Comet Flyby

This graphic depicts the orbit of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring as it swings around the sun in 2014. 

On Oct. 19, the comet will have a very close pass at Mars. 

Its nucleus will miss Mars by about 82,000 miles (132,000 kilometers).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA is taking steps to protect its Mars orbiters, while preserving opportunities to gather valuable scientific data, as Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring heads toward a close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19.

The comet’s nucleus will miss Mars by about 82,000 miles (132,000 kilometers), shedding material hurtling at about 35 miles (56 kilometers) per second, relative to Mars and Mars-orbiting spacecraft.

At that velocity, even the smallest particle, estimated to be about one-fiftieth of an inch (half a millimeter) across, could cause significant damage to a spacecraft.

NASA currently operates two Mars orbiters, with a third on its way and expected to arrive in Martian orbit just a month before the comet flyby.

Teams operating the orbiters plan to have all spacecraft positioned on the opposite side of the Red Planet when the comet is most likely to pass by.

"Three expert teams have modeled this comet for NASA and provided forecasts for its flyby of Mars," explained Rich Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

"The hazard is not an impact of the comet nucleus, but the trail of debris coming from it. Using constraints provided by Earth-based observations, the modeling results indicate that the hazard is not as great as first anticipated."

"Mars will be right at the edge of the debris cloud, so it might encounter some of the particles -- or it might not."

During the day's events, the smallest distance between Siding Spring's nucleus and Mars will be less than one-tenth the distance of any known previous Earthly comet flyby.

The period of greatest risk to orbiting spacecraft will start about 90 minutes later and last about 20 minutes, when Mars will come closest to the center of the widening dust trail from the nucleus.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) made one orbit-adjustment maneuver on July 2 as part of the process of repositioning the spacecraft for the Oct. 19 event. An additional maneuver is planned for Aug. 27.

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter

The team operating NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter is planning a similar maneuver on Aug. 5 to put that spacecraft on track to be in the right place at the right time, as well.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN)

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is on its way to the Red Planet and will enter orbit on Sept. 21.

The MAVEN team is planning to conduct a precautionary maneuver on Oct. 9, prior to the start of the mission's main science phase in early November.

In the days before and after the comet's flyby, NASA will study the comet by taking advantage of how close it comes to Mars.

Researchers plan to use several instruments on the Mars orbiters to study the nucleus, the coma surrounding the nucleus, and the tail of Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring, as well as the possible effects on the Martian atmosphere.

This particular comet has never before entered the inner solar system, so it will provide a fresh source of clues to our solar system's earliest days.

MAVEN will study gases coming off the comet's nucleus into its coma as it is warmed by the sun.

MAVEN also will look for effects the comet flyby may have on the planet’s upper atmosphere and observe the comet as it travels through the solar wind.

Odyssey will study thermal and spectral properties of the comet's coma and tail. MRO will monitor Mars’ atmosphere for possible temperature increases and cloud formation, as well as changes in electron density at high altitudes.

The MRO team also plans to study gases in the comet’s coma. Along with other MRO observations, the team anticipates this event will yield detailed views of the comet’s nucleus and potentially reveal its rotation rate and surface features.

NASA Mars MSL Curiosity rover

Mars' atmosphere, though much thinner than Earth's, is thick enough that NASA does not anticipate any hazard to the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers on the planet's surface, even if dust particles from the comet hit the atmosphere and form into meteors.

Rover cameras may be used to observe the comet before the flyby, and to monitor the atmosphere for meteors while the comet's dust trail is closest to the planet.

Observations from Earth-based and space telescopes provided data used for modeling to make predictions about Siding Spring's Mars flyby, which were in turn used for planning protective maneuvers.

The three modeling teams were headed by researchers at the University of Maryland in College Park, the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and JPL.

NASA ISEE-3 (ICE) spacecraft: Private Group Fund Satellite Reboot Project

Artist's concept image of ISEE-3 (ICE) spacecraft.

Credit: NASA

Red tape and a moderate earthquake did not deter a private group from meeting its goal of making contact with ISEE-3, a 36-year-old NASA spacecraft that has been slumbering in deep space since 1997.

Now, members are trying to redirect the path of the vintage International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 (ISSE-3) probe before it's too late.

The engineers, programmers and citizen scientists, working under the name ISEE-3 Reboot Project, "spoke" with the probe Thursday (May 29) using the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

This was after a 5.8-magnitude earthquake shook the area earlier this week during testing, temporarily shutting down telescope operations.

Keith Cowing

"It took a lot of preparation and perseverance," said co-leader Keith Cowing, who remained behind in Virginia for co-ordination while other co-lead Dennis Wingo worked at Arecibo.

Wingo's team has at the Arecibo Observatory for two weeks and is expected to leave Friday (May 30).

The team technically had the capability to command the spacecraft last Friday (May 23), but under a Space Act Agreement with NASA had to have the agency's approval before making the move. That approval finally came through Thursday (May 29).

Dennis Wingo

Cowing acknowledged waiting for approval took longer than he hoped, but said given it's the first time a private group wanted to do something like this, he could appreciate the agency's caution.

Luckily for the group, their preparation worked: first contact went off without a hitch, with the spacecraft responding to a tone exactly as expected. "I'm doing my happy dance," Cowing said.

NASA's International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE-3) was undergoing testing and evaluation inside Goddard's dynamic test chamber when this photo was taken. 

Working inside a dynamic test chamber, Goddard engineers wear protective "clean room" clothing to prevent microscopic dust particles from damaging the sophisticated instrumentation. 

NASA launched the 16-sided polyhedron, which weighed 1,032 lbs. (469 kg.), from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 12, 19 

This illustration shows the trajectory of the ISEE-3-ICE Trajectory spacecraft. 

Credit: NAS 

The ISEE-3 Reboot Crew After Signal Confirmation on USRP Radio

Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get new Kurs-NA ISS docking system in 2015

Russian spacecraft performing flights to the International Space Station will be equipped with a new automated approach and docking system starting next year, the manufacturer of the system said Monday, RIA Novosti reports.

"All Kurs systems will be replaced with Kurs-NA equipment in 2015," the Izhevskiy Radiozavod company said in a statement.

The unmanned Progress M-21M resupply vehicle currently docked with the station successfully tested the new system last week.

The cargo ship undocked from the ISS in an automatic mode using the new Kurs-NA system on Wednesday and re-docked Friday.

The Kurs-NA system boasts advanced electronics, a fully-digitized control system and increased docking precision compared to its predecessor.

The improved system will be used on all upgraded Progress and manned Soyuz spacecraft in the future.

The Kurs-NA was first tested in space in July 2012, but the Progress cargo ship in that test failed to re-dock with the station due to an apparent failure in the system's sensors.

During a second test in November, the Progress M-21M resupply craft was forced to dock in a manual mode due to another failure of the Kurs-NA system.

NASA OSIRIS-REx: Spacecraft that will visit asteroid in 2018

This is an artist's concept of NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft preparing to take a sample from asteroid Bennu. 

Credit: NASA/Goddard

NASA has given the OSIRIS-REx mission, led by the University of Arizona, the go-ahead to begin building the spacecraft, flight instruments, ground system and launch support facilities.

OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission slated to send a spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid and collect samples.

The mission will focus on finding answers to basic questions about the composition of the very early solar system and the source of organic materials and water that made life possible on Earth.

It will also aid NASA's asteroid initiative and support the agency's efforts to understand the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects and characterize those suitable for future asteroid exploration missions.

The UA got the thumbs up on April 9 after a successful Mission Critical Design Review (CDR) for NASA's Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx).

The review was held at the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Littleton, Colo., April 1-9. An independent review board, comprised of experts from NASA and several external organizations, met to review the system design.

"Successfully passing mission CDR is a major accomplishment, but the hard part is still in front of us—building, integrating and testing the flight system to meet our tight launch window," said Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"It marks a major shift in our mission," said Ed Beshore, a scientist at the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory, who is the mission's deputy principal investigator.

"For all of us involved with OSIRIS-REx, it is a transition from designing the mission to implementing it. It means we are now cutting metal, building a spacecraft and writing software."

OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2016, rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in 2018 and spend a year studying the asteroid before collecting a sample of at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of surface material and returning it to Earth for scientists to study in 2023.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center will provide overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission oversight for OSIRIS-REx. The UA will lead the effort, provide the camera system and science processing and operations center.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed by the Marshall Spaceflight Center.

Russian Soyuz Launch unmanned cargo spacecraft Progress M-22M

A Russian Soyuz-U booster carrying an unmanned cargo spacecraft Progress M-22M is transported to a launch pad at the Russian leased Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome early on February 3, 2012

Russia successfully launched an unmanned cargo ship to the International Space Station on Wednesday evening after a spaceship carrying three astronauts experienced a technical glitch last month.

"At 19:35 Moscow time (15:35 GMT), the cargo ship separated from the third-stage booster rockets on schedule," the Russian space agency said in a statement on its website after the Progress M-23M ship blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The ship carrying 2.5 tonnes of supplies including oxygen, containers of food and water and parcels for the crew is due to dock with the ISS at 01:16 am Thursday (21:16 GMT Wednesday).

The spaceship is following a fast-track route to the international space laboratory that takes just six hours.

Last month, a Soyuz spaceship carrying two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut, was unable to follow the fast-track route to the ISS after a technical glitch in approach.

The astronauts were forced to spend two days en route to the ISS.

Russia insisted that the glitch was minor and would not prevent future missions from using the fast-track route to the ISS.

NASA has been wholly reliant on Russia for delivering astronauts to the space station since the US retired its space shuttles.

NASA Mars HiRise Image:

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft shows a sand dune field in a Southern highlands crater on the red planet. 

The sun lay only 5 degrees above the horizon when the spacecraft captured this image, producing deep shadows, with dune crests sticking up sharply into the sunlight. 

The bright patches which appear bluish in enhanced color arise from seasonal frost accumulating as this hemisphere approaches winter. 

Credit: NASA HiRISE

NASA Odyssey: Longest-serving Mars spacecraft relocated to aid new observations

No NASA Mars orbiter has been in a position to observe morning daylight on Mars since the twin Viking orbiters of the 1970s. 

Credit: NASA/JPL

NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has tweaked its orbit to help scientists make the first systematic observations of how morning fogs, clouds and surface frost develop in different seasons on the Red Planet.

The maneuver took place Tuesday, Feb. 11. Odyssey team engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver, designed the gentle move to accelerate Odyssey's drift toward a morning-daylight orbit.

The desired change will occur gradually until the intended orbit geometry is reached in November 2015 and another maneuver halts the drift.

The change will enable observation of changing ground temperatures after sunrise and after sunset in thousands of places on Mars.

Those observations could yield insight about the composition of the ground and about temperature-driven processes, such as warm-season flows observed on some slopes, and geysers fed by spring thawing of carbon-dioxide ice near Mars' poles.

Jeffrey Plaut

"We're teaching an old spacecraft new tricks," said Odyssey Project Scientist Jeffrey Plaut of JPL.

"Odyssey will be in position to see Mars in a more different light from ever before."

Neither Odyssey, nor any other NASA Mars orbiter since the 1970s, has flown an orbital pattern with a view of the ground in morning daylight.

Earlier NASA orbiters and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express orbiter have provided some tantalizing views of morning mists on Mars, but have concentrated on afternoon observation times when views of the surface are less hazy.

Odyssey was launched in 2001 and began its science mission 12 years ago this month. It is the longest-working spacecraft ever sent to Mars.

NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. Credit: NASA/JPL

Odyssey completed Tuesday's maneuver at 12:03 p.m. PST (3:03 p.m. EST).

It used four thrusters, each providing about 5 pounds (22 newtons) of force for a 29-second burn.

David Lehman

"This veteran spacecraft performed exactly as planned," said Odyssey Project Manager David Lehman of JPL.

Odyssey flies in an orbit nearly over the poles and synchronized with the sun.

The south-to-north leg of the orbit provided an advantage for the orbiter's Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS) to have its cooling equipment pointed away from the sun.

The spectrometer checked for evidence of water near the Martian surface.

It has made important discoveries of how widely water ice—detected as hydrogen— and other elements are distributed on Mars.