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Climbing Legs for Robonaut 2 Headed to International Space Station - We've built and are sending a set of high-tech legs up to the space station for Robonaut 2 (R2), the station's robotic crew member. The new legs are scheduled to launch on the SpaceX-3 commercial cargo flight to the ISS, scheduled to launch Monday, April 14 at 4:58 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. These new legs will provide R2 the mobility it needs to help with regular and repetitive tasks inside and outside the space station. The goal is to free up the crew for more critical work, including scientific research. Once the legs are attached to the R2 torso, the robot will have a fully extended leg span of nine feet, giving it great flexibility for movement around the space station. Each leg has seven joints and a device on what would be the foot, called an "end effector," which allows the robot to take advantage of handrails and sockets inside and outside the station. A vision system for the end effectors also will be used to verify and eventually automate each limb's approach and grasp. Image Credit: NASA #spacex3 #nasa #iss #robonaut #launch #spacestation #space #science; -
It’s launch day! Weather is 80 percent favorable for today’s SpaceX-3 liftoff to the International Space Station. NASA Television will air launch coverage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft beginning at 3:45 p.m. EDT. Liftoff is targeted for 4:58 p.m. from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The image is of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon commercial cargo craft on top rests at its launch pad on April 14. Image Credit NASA #ISS #nasa #spacex3 #dragon #spacestation #space #321liftoff #launch; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Supernova A supernova is the explosion of a star. It is the largest explosion that takes place in space. Supernovas are often seen in other galaxies. But supernovas are difficult to see in our own Milky Way galaxy because dust blocks our view. In 1604, Johannes Kepler discovered the last observed supernova in the Milky Way. NASA’s Chandra telescope discovered the remains of a more recent supernova. It exploded in the Milky Way more than a hundred years ago. A supernova happens where there is a change in the core, or center, of a star. A change can occur in two different ways, with both resulting in a supernova. The first type of supernova happens in binary star systems. Binary stars are two stars that orbit the same point. One of the stars, a carbon-oxygen white dwarf, steals matter from its companion star. Eventually, the white dwarf accumulates too much matter. Having too much matter causes the star to explode, resulting in a supernova. The second type of supernova occurs at the end of a single star’s lifetime. As the star runs out of nuclear fuel, some of its mass flows into its core. Eventually, the core is so heavy that it cannot withstand its own gravitational force. The core collapses, which results in the giant explosion of a supernova. The sun is a single star, but it does not have enough mass to become a supernova. Seen here is Cassiopeia A, among the best-studied supernova remnants. This image blends data from NASA's Spitzer (red), Hubble (yellow), and Chandra (green and blue) observatories. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO #supernova #universe #stars #nasa #space; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Large Magellanic Cloud Nearly 200,000 light-years from Earth, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, floats in space, in a long and slow dance around our galaxy. Vast clouds of gas within it slowly collapse to form new stars. In turn, these light up the gas clouds in a riot of colors, visible in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is ablaze with star-forming regions. From the Tarantula Nebula, the brightest stellar nursery in our cosmic neighborhood, to LHA 120-N 11, part of which is featured in this Hubble image, the small and irregular galaxy is scattered with glowing nebulae, the most noticeable sign that new stars are being born. Image Credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble #nasa #hubble #universe #space; -
As seen on #Cosmos: Our Sun On August 31, 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth's magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, causing aurora to appear on the night of Monday, September 3. The image above includes an image of Earth to show the size of the CME compared to the size of Earth. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO #sun #solar #solarsystem #sdo #nasa #space;
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As seen on #Cosmos: Photosynthesis — Seen From Space NASA scientists have discovered a new way to use satellites to measure what's occurring inside Earth's land plants at a cellular level. During photosynthesis, plants emit what is called fluorescence - a form of light invisible to the naked eye but detectable by satellites orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth. NASA scientists established a method to turn this satellite data into global maps of the subtle phenomenon in more detail than ever before. The new maps provide a 16-fold increase in spatial resolution and a 3-fold increase in temporal resolution over the first proof-of-concept maps released in 2011. Improved global measurements could have implications for farmers interested in early indications of crop stress, and ecologists looking to better understand global vegetation and carbon cycle processes. Image credit: NASA #cosmos #nasa #earthpics #earth #spaceobservations #space #earthobservations #earthobs; -
International Space Station Program officials, the international partners and representatives of SpaceX agreed Sunday to proceed with Monday’s scheduled launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and its Dragon cargo craft on the company’s third commercial resupply mission to the orbital laboratory. After a series of meetings and reviews of procedures, flight controllers, engineers and managers concluded that the SpaceX-3 mission could be conducted as planned without violating any launch commit criteria despite the loss Friday of a backup computer command relay box called a multiplexer/demultiplexer (MDM) that resides in the station’s S0 truss. The problem with the box occurred during a routine health check of the device. The prime multiplexer continues to operate normally. This pair of MDMs provide commanding to the station’s external cooling system, Solar Alpha Rotary joints, Mobile Transporter rail car and insight into other truss systems. The engineering teams reported to mission managers that the station possesses enough redundancy to allow the SpaceX mission to launch Monday at 4:58 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. In advance of launch, the station’s Mobile Transporter will be moved to the proper position on the truss later today and after Dragon’s launch, the station’s solar arrays will be oriented Monday to the correct angles for the scheduled capture of the U.S. cargo craft on Wednesday and its berthing to the Earth-facing port on the Harmony module. These are steps that would properly configure the station for the mission even if the prime MDM experiences a problem. Image Credit: NASA #nasa #spacex #dragon #iss; -
Astronaut Rick Mastracchio from @AstroRM tweeted this image and wrote: "Long Island, Connecticut, Massachusets and more. Our orbit is swinging west so that soon we will get some great US day passes again." Expedition 38/39 crew members Mikhail Tyurin, Koichi Wakata and Mastracchio will return to Earth May 14 inside the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft. They will be replaced May 29 when the Expedition 40/41 crew of Maxim Suraev, Reid Wiseman and Alexander Gerst arrive inside the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft. Another cargo ship is set for a launch to the space station on Monday at 4:48 p.m. EDT. The Dragon commercial cargo craft will liftoff atop a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX-3 mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Image Credit: NASA #space #spacestation #iss #space #exp39 #nasa; -
Lava flow from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano takes out forests in this latest satellite view. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth-Observing 1 captured these images of Kahauale’a 2 on February 2 and March 11, 2014. The red outlines represent hotspots ALI detected by observing shortwave infrared light. Active flow features known as breakouts are present in many of the hotspots. Rocky lava flows appear black. Clouds are white. The reddish-brown areas along the edges of the lava flow are scorched forests. While Kahauale’a 2 poses no immediate risk to human settlements, it could eventually encroach on communities to the northeast if it continues on its current path. In the past, lava destroyed several communities, including the Royal Gardens subdivision, along the south coast of Hawaii. Credit: NASA/EO-1 ALI data #volcano #earth #earthrightnow #kilauea #nasa #satellite #science #hawaii; -
Avionics system for the Space Launch System, or SLS, boosters gets 'boost' of its own on path to space. The avionics system is responsible for igniting, steering and jettison of the two, five-segment solid rocket boosters for the SLS. The boosters used during the first two launches of SLS will be the world's largest at 154 feet long and 12 feet in diameter. The avionics testing, which will be completed this summer, will prove the system is ready to enter the qualification phase leading to SLS's first flight in 2017. SLS will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond Earth orbit. It also will back up commercial and international partner transportation services to the International Space Station. Designed to be flexible for crew or cargo missions, the SLS will be safe, affordable, and sustainable, to continue America's journey of discovery from the unique vantage point of space. The SLS will take astronauts farther into space than ever before, while engaging the U.S. aerospace workforce here at home. This image is an artist concept of SLS solid rocket boosters firing their separation rockets and pushing away from the core stage, which continues toward space with the Orion spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/MSFC #nasa #orion #sls #space #avionic #launch #exploration #earth #rocket;
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The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge has begun, and you can follow @NASA_Marshall on Instagram for behind the scenes images from the challenge. The Rover Challenge is a new engineering design challenge that will focus on NASA’s current plans to explore planets, moons, asteroids and comets -- all members of the solar system family. The new NASA Rover Challenge (formerly NASA Great Moonbuggy Race) is being held April 10-12, 2014, at the U. S. Space & Rocket Center in Hunstville, Alabama. The challenge will focus on designing, constructing and testing technologies for mobility devices to perform in these different environments, and it will provide valuable experiences that engage students in the technologies and concepts that will be needed in future exploration missions. Rovers will be human-powered and carry two students, one female and one male, over a half-mile obstacle course of simulated extraterrestrial terrain of craters, boulders, ridges, inclines, crevasses and ruts. The top three winning teams in each division (one High School Division and one College/University Division) will be those having the shortest total times in assembling their rovers and traversing the course. Each team is permitted two runs of the course, and the shortest course time (plus penalties) will be added to the assembly time for the final total event time. This image shows "the pit" where the Rover Challenge pit crew weld axels, steering columns and other rover structures before teams head to the race starting line! #rovergram #roverchallenge #nasa #race #raceday#pitcrew #weld; -
Veggie Will Expand Fresh Food Production on Space Station! A plant growth chamber bound for the International Space Station inside the Dragon capsule on the SpaceX-3 resupply mission slated to launch Monday at 4:58 p.m. EDT may help expand in-orbit food production capabilities in more ways than one, and offer astronauts something they don't take for granted, fresh food. Our Veg-01 experiment will be used to study the in-orbit function and performance of a new expandable plant growth facility called Veggie and its plant "pillows." The investigation will focus on the growth and development of "Outredgeous" lettuce seedlings in the spaceflight environment. This image is of Outredgeous red romaine lettuce plants growing inside a prototype Veggie flight pillow. The bellows of the hardware have been lowered to better observe the plants. A small temperature and relative humidity data logger is placed between the pillows small white box, central. Image Credit: NASA/Gioia Massa #iss #veggie #space #science #iss #spacex #dragon #spacestation #plants #nasa; -
Supernova Cleans Up Its Surroundings: Supernovas are the spectacular ends to the lives of many massive stars. These explosions, which occur on average twice a century in the Milky Way, can produce enormous amounts of energy and be as bright as an entire galaxy. These events are also important because the remains of the shattered star are hurled into space. As this debris field – called a supernova remnant – expands, it carries the material it encounters along with it. Astronomers have identified a supernova remnant that has several unusual properties. First, they found that this supernova remnant – known as G352.7-0.1 (or, G352 for short) – has swept up a remarkable amount of material, equivalent to about 45 times the mass of the Sun. Another atypical trait of G352 is that it has a very different shape in radio data compared to that in X-rays. Most of the radio emission is shaped like an ellipse, contrasting with the X-ray emission that fills in the center of the radio ellipse. This is seen in this new composite image of G352 that contains X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue and radio data from the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in pink. These data have also been combined with infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope in orange, and optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey in white. (The infrared emission to the upper left and lower right are not directly related to the supernova remnant.) Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Morehead State Univ/T.Pannuti et al.; Optical: DSS; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Radio: NRAO/VLA/Argentinian Institute of Radioastronomy/G.Dubner #nasa #space #chandra #supernova #universe; -
Moon or Planet? The 'Exomoon Hunt' Continues - Researchers have detected the first "exomoon" candidate -- a moon orbiting a planet that lies outside our solar system. Using a technique called "microlensing," they observed what could be either a moon and a planet -- or a planet and a star. This artist's conception depicts the planet/moon pairing. If the moon scenario is true, the moon would weigh less than Earth, and the planet would be more massive than Jupiter. The scientists can't confirm the results partly because microlensing events happen once, due to chance encounters. The events occur when a star or planet happens to pass in front of a more distant star, causing the distant star to brighten. If the passing object has a companion -- either a planet or moon -- it will alter the brightening effect. Once the event is over, it is possible to study the passing object on its own. But the results would still not be able to distinguish between a planet/moon duo and a faint star/planet. Both pairings would be too dim to be seen. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #nasa #exomoon #planets #space #star #exploration #science; -
New Progress cargo spacecraft launched and docked to the International Space Station! A Russian space freighter filled with trash departed the International Space Station on time Monday and will orbit Earth 11 days for engineering tests before finally deorbiting over the Pacific Ocean for a fiery disposal. A new space delivery launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday and docked to the station's Pirs docking compartment at 5:14 p.m. EDT Thursday. It was traveling about 260 statute miles directly over the west coast of Peru. The craft is delivering almost 3 tons of food, fuel and supplies, including 1,764 pounds of propellant, 105 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 3,126 pounds of supplies for the Expedition 39 crew. Progress 55 is scheduled to remain docked to Pirs until July. This image is of a Progress resupply craft approaches the space station on Feb. 11, 2013. Credit: NASA #nasa #roscosmos #progress #spacecraft #space #iss;
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