National Aeronautics and Space Administration



MONDAY January 24: Twenty-five years ago today, in 1986, Voyager 2 made its closest approach – within 81,500 kilometers (50,600 miles) of the cloud tops of Uranus.

MABEL’s maiden voyage: An instrument team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is using the Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental Lidar (MABEL) to test a technique that will someday fly on a satellite to measure Earth’s surface with great precision.

More awesomeness: The NASA Blueshift blog comments on wintry weather at Goddard, the Optimus Prime video contest, blazing galaxies, and the latest 2012 apocalypse foolishness.


TUESDAY January 25: On this day in 1984, President Ronald Reagan made an Apollo-like announcement to build a Space Station within a decade as part of the State of the Union Address before Congress. What came to be called Space Station Freedom evolved into a new program: the International Space Station, now complete after $100 billion and 11 years of construction — and 27 years since Reagan’s announcement. Early concepts for the station look nothing like today’s ISS.

“America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade.”— President Ronald Reagan, 1984.





New eyes on the sky: On this day in 1983, NASA launched the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) mission. During its ten months of operation, IRAS scanned more than 96 percent of the sky four times, discovering a half-million new infrared sources for subsequent exploration and discovery.

Go to the SORCE: On this day in 2003, NASA launched the SOlar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite to mske precise measurements of the amount of energy Earth receives from the sun.

Russian beauty: The ASTER Featured Image released today shows Arkhangelsk (or Archangel in English), the administrative capital of Archangelsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated on both banks of the Dvina River near where it flows into the White Sea.

My darling Clementine: On this day in 1994, NASA launched the joint Department of Defense/NASA Clementine mission. It mapped most of the lunar surface at a number of resolutions and wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared.


WEDNESDAY January 26: The leading NASA science news of the week: The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the most distant object ever seen in the universe.

Bright idea: Beautiful night shining clouds grace the NASA Earth Observatory Featured Image today.




THURSDAY January 27: Today NASA holds a Day of Remembrance for the space explorers who died in the line of duty on Apollo 1 and the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. On January 27, 1967, the Apollo 1 crew of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire in the Apollo Command Module during a preflight test at Cape Canaveral. On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. On February 1, 2003, the shuttle Columbia was lost shortly before landing.

“The last week of January every year brings us the opportunity to reflect on the sobering realities of our space exploration enterprise. Each time men and women board a spacecraft, their actions carry great risk along with the opportunity for great discoveries and the chance to push the envelope of our human achievement. Today, we honor the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia crews, as well as other members of the NASA Family who lost their lives supporting NASA’s mission of exploration. We thank them and their families for their extraordinary sacrifices in the service of our nation.” — Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator






FASTSAT update: Two of FASTSAT’s three instruments are collecting data; a third comes online February 1.

A blast: NASA Earth Observatory features the latest image of the eruption of Mexico’s Colima Volcano.


FRIDAY January 28: See the latest images and video of this week’s East Coast snow storm!
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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

A "gateway" station between Earth and the moon could be a stepping stone out of Earth orbit for future deep-space exploration. (Artist concept of gateway station courtesy John Frassanito & Associates.)



Imagine it’s New Year’s Day, 2021. The previous year, NASA officially shuttered the International Space Station. The last astronaut has turned off the lights and landed safely.

Then what? Then WHERE?

This week, one of our senior civil servant scientists, Harley Thronson, University of Texas partner Dan Lester, and aerospace industry colleague Ted Talay published an intriguing scenario in the online journal Space Review. They explain how the United States could continue to field astronauts in space despite the recent decision to abandon the return-to-the-moon plan that reigned though most of the last decade.

The idea would be to establish a “gateway” deep-space station between Earth and the moon as a stepping stone out of low-Earth orbit for our astronauts. The coolest thing is: It could be done without the Space Shuttle, using existing launch systems such as the Delta 4, that routinely and reliably launch heavy payloads already. To save on weight, much of the station’s inhabitable space would be a thick-walled, multi-layer inflatable donut-shaped structure.

A TransHab inflatable module

Thronson, Talay, and Lester are by no means the first or the only ones to propose an inflatable gateway station. The concept has been in development in various guises and by various people – from NASA itself to the private “space hotel” company Bigelow Aerospace – since the late 1990s. Catch up on the tech here at the Wikipedia article about the “TransHab” concept for the lunar gateway.

Thronson is Associate Director for Advanced Concepts and Planning in the Astrophysics Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and is involved in major initiatives to develop future large optical systems for use in space and the capabilities to build them. He started thinking about the space gateway concept in 1999, while serving on NASA’s Decade Planning Team. The group sketched out a number of next-generation concepts for human space exploration — including inflatable space habitat designs.

Thronson is still at it a decade later, and will be presenting his team’s ideas at various journals and conferences in the near future. In this week’s article, they describe their latest formulation for the gateway station. An earlier article, published in February 2010, gives additional background.

“Such a ‘Gateway’ could be the first step beyond [low-Earth orbit] in a flexible path, including returning humans to the Moon and supporting surface operations there. These habitats have also been proposed to demonstrate next-generation systems developed on the ISS that will be necessary for missions beyond the Earth-Moon system. This ‘beachhead’ for longer-range human operations at these libration points may eventually provide opportunities for other missions. For example, assembly and upgrade of complex science facilities and support for space depot systems may be carried out at these sites.”

Here are the basic bullet points for Thronson, Lester, and Talay’s gateway concept:

• Launch a fuel tanker into low-Earth orbit.
• Launch the station into orbit and refuel the Delta’s liquid-fuel second stage.
• Boost outward to L1 or L2, locations between Earth and the moon where their gravity balances out and it thus requires minimal fuel to maintain the station’s position. This would be about 60,000 kilometers (37,300 miles) from the moon.
• Send a crew of three to the station. Up to four crews could go to the station per year, each requiring two Delta 4 Heavy launches.
• The pressurized interior volume of the station would be 170 cubic meters. (The space shuttle orbiter has 71.5 cubic meters, NASA’s Skylab had 283, and the ISS has around 1,000.)
• The crew could remain for a few months at a time. This would be an opportunity to continue learning how to live and work in deep space in anticipation of future trips to near-Earth asteroids or Mars.

But here’s the really cool part. The station would be close enough to the moon to allow near-instantaneous communication with robots. Astronauts could explore the lunar surface using telepresence technology. Their view would be unhindered by bulky helmets ands suits, allowing them to experience and explore the environment in a way undreamt by the pioneering Apollo moon walkers.

That, my friends, would be Very Cool, not to mention electrifying to the public and to students.

In the end, the gateway model is a way of laying smaller, more achievable (not to mention affordable) “stepping stones” into space. And there’s still plenty to explore.

In the first of a series of articles, “The Case for the Moon: Why We Should Go Back Now,” running this week on Space.com. The reporter interviewed one of our solar system scientists for the article:

“The Apollo astronauts made only brief visits to only six places on the moon, all near the equator,” said Richard Vondrak, deputy director of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Our most recent missions, such as LRO and LCROSS, are revealing new secrets of the moon and helping us to identify new places to go, such as the polar regions.”

Although the future of U.S. human space flight is somewhat uncertain right now, the dream of space exploration burns as brightly as ever.

Robonaut, a telepresence robot under development at NASA.

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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

MONDAY November 1: NASA Blueshift’s Weekly Awesomeness Round Up highlights globs of globular cluster stars, advances in work on the Webb Telescope, a new planetary census, and other astro-news and images.

Closer: Solar Dynamics Observatory Pick of the Week features merging sunspots.


TUESDAY November 2: How can astronomers use the solar system’s rainbow colors to search for alien Earths? Find out by reading the web feature and watching the video.

Happy birthday, ISS: Today marks the tenth year of continuous human presence in space aboard the International Space Station. Last week saw the ISS become the longest continuously inhabited spacecraft by exceeding the Russian Mir space station’s record of 3,644 days. See the cool slideshow of various stages of space station growth over the decade.

• ISS made 57, 631 orbits in the first 10 years.
• It is 361 feet long.
• It has the internal volume of 1.5 Boeing 747s.
• 200 astronauts have visited it.

Statistics from theweek.com.


WEDNESDAY November 3: What will the Webb Telescope see? See a series of five new visualizations. NASA Blueshift also covers the story today.

Pass over: Terra satellite ASTER Image of the Day features the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan.

Head for the sun: On this day in 1973, Mariner 10 launched. It was the first space probe to explore Mercury.




THURSDAY November 4: NASA’s Deep Impact/EPOXI mission spacecraft successfully flew past comet Hartley 2 at 10 a.m. EDT today and sends back the first close-up images — and they are spectacular. Also, meet the man they named the comet after.


FRIDAY November 5: Earth Observatory’s Image of the Day shows a snapshot of Mount Merapi volcano erupting in Indonesia. The Terra satellite’s ASTER instrument captured the thermal signature of hot ash and rock and a glowing lava dome.



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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

One recent Saturday in August, I woke at 4:30 a.m., rubbed my eyes in the early morning darkness, and headed for Goddard Space Flight Center to watch the launch of an Atlas 5. The rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, carrying a military communications satellite into high geosynchronous orbit.

My perch: the Flight Dynamics Facility, which I described in an earlier post about FDF’s support of Shuttle and Space Station missions.

The FDF operations area is a large room packed with computer workstations. The mission of the FDF is to provide precise pointing coordinates to enable ground stations and satellites to track launch vehicles like the Atlas V into space. FDF also pitches in to track the Shuttle orbiter and the Space Station in low-Earth orbit to maintain links to the ground.

This video, with voiceover by FDF junior systems engineer Jason Laing, explains some of the major events in the launch of the Atlas V:

Today the Atlas will carry the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite, the first of three. The system will provide secure global military communications between ground, sea, and air.

Start of show: I got in at around 6 a.m. and met the lead engineer for this launch, Syed Hasan. Bleary-eyed but alert, he got in at 12:30 a.m. to begin check-outs of the computer and communications systems. By Syed’s side for the launch: James Cappellari. A nearly 50-year veteran of NASA, Cappellari helped to develop and implement the Space Network. I deposited the obligatory bucket of donut-like objects in the FDF break room and got ready for “start of show.”

Start of show in the FDF is 10 minutes before launch, which today is slated for 7:07 a.m. At start of show, a TDRS satellite hovering above the U.S. East Coast will start tracking the Atlas right on the pad. Today it is TDRS 10, but TDRS 4 is also available for East Coast launches.

The AEHF satellite

FDF’s partner in this and other launches is the White Sands Complex in New Mexico, which controls the satellites comprising NASA’s Space Network. Eight TDRS satellites currently provide global tracking, communications, and data links for manned and unmanned spacecraft. When rockets phone home, it is often via the TDRS network.

About the time I arrived at FDF, Syed sent something to White Sands called an autothroughput test vector. This tests the system that would allow FDF to send pointing data directly to the TDRS satellites during launch, bypassing White Sands.

But that would only happen if the satellites drifted off their targets and needed to be repointed. Throughout the launch the ELV (expendable launch vehicle) team at FDF watches to make sure the satellites are pointing at the rocket and able to track it accurately. FDF supports 10 to 15 ELV launches per year.

The rocket “talks” to the ground via data links, so accurate pointing is important. During Space Station missions, accurate pointing of TDRS’ high bandwidth antennas allows astronauts and cosmonauts to wave hello to us earthlings via video downlink. Scientific spacecraft also use TDRS to pipe data to the surface on a regular basis. Without accurate pointing of the TDRS satellites, NASA’s operations in low-earth orbit would be much more limited.

Syed Hasan (left) and James Cappellari

As lead engineer on the ELV team today, Syed runs some FDF software called acquisition data generator, which he would use to create and send a pointing correction vector during launch, if needed. Rows of numbers on his monitor allows Syed to keep an eye on the actual “beam angles” of the TDRS antennas indicating what direction they point.

But FDF now has another tool in their kit for making sure the Space Network is on target. It’s called the SN Beams Display, and it was developed by FDF engineers with a combination of commercial and in-house software code. Today, FDF’s John Bez is manning the SN Beams.

The SN Beams creates a live view of the spacecraft from pad to orbit as well as the TDRS “beams.” Each beam is a cone of space, rendered in green or white, that indicates the position and coverage of the antenna. When a launch vehicle or satellite leaves the beam, it is out of range to that particular satellite, and another in the network must pick up the tracking — sort of like relay racers passing the baton.

During launches, the SN Beams provides visual clues to the FDF about the difference between where each satellite is supposed to be pointing (green), based on pre-calculated pointing data, and where the satellites are actually pointing (white).

Two other members of the team, Eric Smith and Jason Laing, are on hand to check the position of the launch vehicle at several key stages of the launch based on actual telemetry data from the rocket. For this they use two terminals running the “LRP” software, for Launch Reentry Processor. If the craft is not where it’s supposed to be, it might be necessary to adjust the pointing data for the TDRS satellites.

Here is a video of the launch of the AEHF rocket! This is video from the launch contractor, ULA:


Atlas away! The magic moment finally comes at 7:07 a.m., when the Russian-made RD-180 main engine roars to life, supplemented by four solid rocket boosters strapped onto the first stage.

10…9…8…7… you know the rest. There is something about a countdown that is thrilling. It’s a high-stakes game when you launch a multi-billion dollar satellite. There is little room for error.

The early events happen quickly.

At 1:40 into the launch the SRBs cut out; 16 seconds later they jettison. The SN Beams shows this in detail, as three little cartoon SRBs pop off the Atlas V booster and fall into the video game Atlantic Ocean. The live feed from Florida just shows the brilliant plume of the rocket receding into the blue sky.

At 3:27 the faring on the front of the Atlas pops open like two clamshells, exposing the satellite mounted to the top of a Centaur second-stage booster. The main engine is still burning.

At 4:17 the main engine shuts down, an event FDF people call MECO (“mee-koe”), for main engine cut-off. After a short coast, the second stage “Centaur” fires up.

Light that candle!

At 14:08, the Centaur shuts off and the vehicle coasts for almost 8 minutes. Then, at 22:17, it fires up again for about 5 minutes to accelerate the satellite into the higher geosynchronous orbit. The Centaur will cut out and finally release the AEHF satellite 51 minutes into the launch.

Two hours after launch, it’s “end of show” for the FDF. At this point, FDF no longer has responsibility for supplying pointing data to White Sands. However, they continue to monitor for some time, just in case their services are needed.

Big fat planet: I have to say, watching this all on the SN Beams was a real surprise to me, because it shows just how huge Earth is and how puny even the mighty Atlas V is in comparison. After the rocket had been blasting away furiously for almost five minutes, it was still barely over the Atlantic Ocean, heading east.

At 10 minutes, the launch vehicle was screaming through the atmosphere at more than 15,000 mph, the Centaur was still firing. After 20 minutes, the craft was barely over West Africa. At the moment the satellite was released, 51 minutes into the launch, it hadn’t completed a single orbit yet.

This tells you that Earth is BIG and massive. Escaping its gravity to a geosynchronous altitude of 22,500 miles requires a lot of fuel and a lot of time.

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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

This is the first in a series of posts about orbital debris and what it means for space science.



This visualization shows space junk now being tracked in low Earth orbit.

When Scott Hull hears someone use that well-worn phrase “the sky is falling,” I wonder if he thinks: “Yeah, if only it would!”

Hull and fellow orbital debris engineer Ivonne Rodriguez are the orbital undertakers of Goddard Space Flight Center. They offer advice on how to design and operate satellites to produce the least amount of space junk possible after they reach the end of their operational lives.

“Right now, there are at least 19,000 pieces of debris this big or bigger on orbit,” Hull said, holding up a softball, as he talked about the orbital debris issue at the regular Systems Engineering seminar at Goddard Space Flight Center.

“Any of those that hits your spacecraft could pretty much destroy it immediately,” he continued. “Most of these puppies are traveling about 7 kilometers per second or more.”

Translation: Imagine a softball-sized chunk of metal pitched at your friendly neighborhood spacecraft at nearly 16,000 mph.

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Blogolicious space junk facts:

• There are at least 19,000 pieces of orbital debris the size of a softball or bigger orbiting Earth.
• There are at least 300,000 pieces of debris at least 1 centimeter across.
• At current rates of increase, space junk could make some orbits too dangerous for new satellites.

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Radar can track objects the size of a softball (about 10 centimeters) or larger. NASA satellites — not to mention the International Space Station — can and do dodge chunks of space junk from time to time.

Then Hull held up a glass chip about the size of a piece of hard candy.

“There’s more than 300,000 this size. They can really hurt you, maybe end the mission, and probably generate more debris when they hit. But we can’t track them.”

Where does all this junk come from? From Earth, of course. And the problem is growing, and could someday pose a serious threat to the whole business of launching and operating scientific satellites.

Hull talks more about the risks of space junk in the next post in this series. Stay tuned.

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Check it out:

• NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office at Johnson Space Center…
• An article about space junk for students…
• A gallery of photos and images about space junk…
• European Space Agency web site about orbital debris…

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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center.