This Thanksgiving, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will spend the day hard at work before chowing down on a space-friendly version of a traditional turkey dinner. In past years, NASA astronauts have taken off from work on Thanksgiving Day, but this year, they’ll be working up an appetite doing science all day before […]
Tag Archives | space
Vita: next Space Station mission name and logo
ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli will be launched to the International Space Station next year for his third spaceflight. The name and logo for his mission were announced today. Vita stands for Vitality, Innovation, Technology and Ability and was chosen by Italy’s ASI space agency, which is providing the mission through a barter agreement with NASA. […]
'Out Of This World' Uses For Expandable Habitats Explained By Robert Bigelow | Video
By Steve Spaleta | November 23, 2016 11:49am ET After the successful expansion of Bigelow Aerospace’s BEAM aboard the International Space Station, next steps for the technology are being looked at. Robert Bigelow explains some its potential uses. credit : NASA Johnson Space Center Watch more ► Shows Skylon SABRE – A True Space Plane […]
'Grazing' Saturn's Rings – Cassini Spacecraft Will Get Closer Than Ever | Video
Recommended videos for you ‘Out Of This World’ Uses For Expandable Habit… ‘Grazing’ Saturn’s Rings – Cassini Spacecraft… Food Bars For Breakfast – Lightening NASA Ori… Virgo I May Be Milky Way’s Faintest Satellite… Ariane 5 Launches 4 Galileo Satellites – Mult… How Astronauts’ Thanksgiving Feast Was Prepar… Thanksgiving In Space – ISS Commander Shares… […]
Antenna market opening
Technology image of the week: test deployment of a 5 m-diameter antenna reflector, designed for orbital operations To source
Early warning from space of homes on the slide
It was a literal property crash: multiple homes in the Cármenes del Mar resort on the south coast of Spain were engulfed in a landslide, leaving families homeless. But satellite archives offer early warning of such events – and now more accessible than ever before thanks to a new cloud computing platform. To source
Prototype of Space Station's Advanced Plant Habitat
A high fidelity test version of NASA’s Advanced Plant Habitat (APH), the largest plant chamber built for the agency, arrived at Kennedy Space Center the third week of November, 2016. The APH unit, containing small flowering plant seeds, will be delivered to the International Space Station in 2017. To source
Tiny 'Black Magic' Satellite Packs Origami-Like Radar Dish
NASA’s little RainCube satellite, set to launch in 2017, conceals an intricate, unfoldable radar dish. NASA challenged engineers to pack an entire satellite dish into a cereal box with Radar in a CubeSat (RainCube), a technology-demonstration mission scheduled for launch in 2017 that will measure rain and snowfall on Earth from space. Until now, most […]
Europe's New Mars Orbiter Begins Testing Science Gear
Artist’s illustration of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter circling the Red Planet. Europe’s new Mars probe is making its first science observations at the Red Planet, if everything is going according to plan. The Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) arrived at Mars on Oct. 19 and is currently circling the planet once every 4.2 days. […]
The Thanksgiving Sky: Jupiter and the Moon Meet Up Early Thursday
Thursday, Nov. 24 and Friday, Nov. 25 will present stunning predawn views of the moon near bright Jupiter. Here, low in the eastern predawn sky on Nov. 25, the sliver of the old crescent moon sits less than 4 degrees to the lower left of Jupiter. The pair of objects will be most easily visible […]
Ultra-Faint Satellite Galaxy is a Clue to Understanding Dark Matter
There’s a new guy in the galactic neighborhood — a small, ultra-faint satellite galaxy has been discovered orbiting the Milky Way. Currently named Virgo 1, this cosmic groupie isn’t alone: There are about 50 known satellite galaxies orbiting our own (the largest of these are the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud, which are visible from […]
Galileo teamwork
Operations image of the week: Mission control shepherds four Galileo satellites in orbit To source
Not Super, But Still Brilliant: What Causes Regular Novas?
The first lithium ever found in a star explosion was pinpointed in this bright nova (center). Nova Centauri 2013, the exploding star, was captured in July 2015 by the New Technology Telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center […]