Aerospace

India To The Moon: Chandrayaan-1 Now In Lunar Orbit

Chandrayaan-1, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) lunar orbiter, was captured into orbit around the Moon on 8 November. One day later, the spacecraft performed a manoeuvre that lowered the closest point of its orbit down to 200 km from the Moo ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 10 2008 - 7:18pm

A Sea of Safety

Record-breaking accomplishments confuse people about durability. In facing the frailty of humans and their machines, a 'sea of safety' is a comforting notion. Failures remind us safety can be improved. Take the Phoenix Mars Lander, our machine t ...

Blog Post - Hatice Cullingford - Dec 13 2008 - 8:18pm

Kapton E Polymide Will Keep The James Webb Space Telescope Chilly

If every beachgoer could have one, we'd never need sunscreen again. The new sunshield for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, designed by Northrop Grummann  in Redondo Beach, California, is capable of rejecting nearly all of the approximately 250, ...

Article - Chris Rollins - Nov 17 2008 - 4:07pm

Either a Phenomenal Landing, or a Pretty Entertaining Hoax

I had this video forwarded to me, and have to say that initially I was stunned. "Man!  This pilot is one lucky guy!"  But then I immediately began to wonder, why didn't I see this on the news- like a billion times?  I mean, if a camera happe ...

Blog Post - Kimberly Crandell - Dec 30 2008 - 6:36pm

Tiny Firefly Satellite Takes On Nature's Own Particle Accelerator

A new small satellite about the size of a loaf of bread and called Firefly is designed to help solve the mystery of the most powerful natural particle accelerator in Earth's atmosphere- TGFs, or terrestrial gamma-ray flashes- which likely result from ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 25 2008 - 12:22pm

High School Scientists, Get Your Moon Buggy On

Registration is open for NASA's 16th annual Great Moonbuggy Race, taking place April 3-4, 2009, in Huntsville, Ala.   The race was founded at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville in 1994. The U.S. Space and Rocket Center hosts the tw ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 29 2008 - 1:30am

Fully Upgraded C-5M Super Galaxy To Extend Lifetime To 2040

Lockheed Martin has just delivered the most recent upgrade of the military's cargo backbone, the C-5M Super Galaxy, to the U.S. Air Force at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Georgia. The aircraft contains a host of upgrades and moderniz ...

Article - Chris Rollins - Dec 9 2008 - 5:11pm

LCROSS Uses Spent Rocket Booster To Detect Water On The Moon

Thanks to NASA and the LCROSS satellite, I may soon know where the best place is to build my Moon Base. A new analysis of the data from the Lunar Prospector, launched in 1998, shows large concentrations of hydrogen around the lunar poles. If that hydrogen ...

Article - Chris Rollins - Dec 18 2008 - 5:29pm

NASA Signs Agreement To Test Plasma Drive On The International Space Station

Does Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket sound like science fiction to you?   NASA and Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas, have signed a Space Act Agreement that could lead to the testing of their new plasma-based space propulsion technol ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 25 2008 - 11:11pm

F-35 Decides It May Need To Use Conventional Take-Off Also

Lockheed Martin rolled out a conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant of the F-35 Lightning II fighter, called F-35AF-1, which joins three weight-optimized F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing variants currently undergoing testing. The aircraft are ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 30 2008 - 12:06pm