Cape Canaveral, Fla. (UPI) Jun 23, 2010
National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials say they are considering changing the launch dates for the final two space shuttle missions. NASA program managers said the change would move the launch date for STS-133 from Sept. 16 to Oct. 29 and STS-134 from late November to Feb. 28 to allow additional time to prepare for those missions. "The change is under review and a

London, UK (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
A team of scientists from the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of Texas has succeeded in identifying one of the most complex organic molecules yet found in the material between the stars, the so-called interstellar medium. The discovery of anthracene could help resolve a decades-old astrophysical mystery concerning the production of organic molecules in space. The resea

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 24, 2010
NASA has released the first-ever airborne radar images of the deformation in Earth's surface caused by a major earthquake - the magnitude 7.2 temblor that rocked Mexico's state of Baja California and parts of the American Southwest on April 4. The data reveal that in the area studied, the quake moved the Calexico, Calif., region in a downward and southerly direction up to 80 centimeters (3

Moffett Field CA (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
Two planet-hunting telescopes - CoRoT and Kepler - are keeping astronomers hard at work cataloging far-distant planets that orbit other stars in our galaxy. CoRoT recently reported the discovery of six gas giant planets similar to Jupiter. Kepler, meanwhile, is not confirming the discovery of any planets, but has announced hundreds of planet candidates after only 43 days of scanning the stars.

Bremen, Germany (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
Astrium, Europe's leading space company, has been awarded a contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop key technologies for new re-ignitable upper stages for new launchers. Under the two-year contract, worth euros 20 million, Astrium will develop advanced technologies that will play a major role in enabling the engines of the cryogenic upper stages (fuelled by liquid hydrogen and ox

Paris, France (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
Thanks to data from Venus Express we have the best idea yet of how Venus' atmosphere works, but there is still a long way to go, delegates at this year's International Venus Conference will be told. At the event scientists are outlining how a better understanding of our nearest planetary neighbour can help us probe our own planet, as well as other bodies in our Solar System, and beyond. Ve

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
Among the views of Earth afforded astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), surely one of the most spectacular is of the aurora. These ever-shifting displays of colored ribbons, curtains, rays, and spots are most visible near the North (aurora borealis) and South (aurora australis) Poles as charged particles (ions) streaming from the Sun (the solar wind) interact with Earth's magn

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
When you ask an astronomer about the James Webb Space Telescope's orbit, they'll tell you something that sounds like it came from a science-fiction novel. The Webb won't be orbiting the Earth -instead we will send it almost a million miles out into space to a place called "L2." L2 is short-hand for the second Lagrange Point, a wonderful accident of gravity and orbital mechanics, and the pe

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 24, 2010
Many scientists speculate that our galaxy could be full of places like Pandora from the movie "Avatar" - Earth-like worlds in solar systems besides our own. That doesn't mean such worlds have been easy to find, however. Of the 400-plus planets so far discovered, none could support life as we know it on Earth. "The problem with finding Earth-like planets," said Stefan Martin, an engin

Paris, France (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
"HD209458b is definitely not a place for the faint-hearted. By studying the poisonous carbon monoxide gas with great accuracy we found evidence for a super wind, blowing at a speed of 5000 to 10 000 km per hour," says Ignas Snellen, who led the team of astronomers. HD209458b is an exoplanet of about 60% the mass of Jupiter orbiting a solar-like star located 150 light-years from Earth towar

London, UK (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
Cosmologists at UCL are a step closer to determining the mass of the elusive neutrino particle, not by using a giant particle detector, but by gazing up into space. Although it has been shown that a neutrino has a mass, it is vanishingly small and extremely hard to measure - a neutrino is capable of passing through a light year (about six trillion miles) of lead without hitting a single at

Washington DC (SPX) Jun 24, 2010
On Saturday, June 19, 2010, oil spread northeast from the leaking Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil appears as a maze of silvery-gray ribbons in this photo-like image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite. The location of the leaking well is marked with a white dot. North of the well, a spot of black may be smoke;

Paris (AFP) June 23, 2010
A planet named after ancient Egypt's Lord of the Dead is a place where human beings would be simultaneously boiled, poisoned and ripped apart by superstorms, astronomers reported on Wednesday. The distant world, orbiting a bright star in the constellation of Pegasus 150 light years from Earth, is known officially as HD 209458b, but has been nicknamed Osiris, the god of the Egyptian underworl

Washington (AFP) June 23, 2010
A teen school project on Mars uncovered a surprise - what appears to be a hole in the roof of a cave on the red planet, researchers said Wednesday. The 16 students in a 7th grade science class at Evergreen Middle School in Cottonwood, California, chose to study lava tubes, a common volcanic feature on Earth and Mars as their class project sponsored by Arizona State University's Mars Educati

Paris (AFP) June 23, 2010
Scientists said they had overcome two hurdles in the quest for quantum computers, whose backers say will pry open an era of computing magic by exploiting a quirk of the sub-atomic world. Dubbed "supercomputers on steroids" but facing daunting technical obstacles, quantum computing is based on a counter-intuitive theory of particle physics. When two particles come together, they become "e

Jiuquan, China (XNA) Jun 16, 2010
China has successfully sent into space a scientific research satellite at 9:39 a.m. Tuesday from northwest China's Gansu Province. The satellite "Shijian XII," sent from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center of Gansu Province, was carried by the China-developed Long March 2D rocket.

Sources with the launch center said the satellite was designed for carrying out scientific and technological experiments including space environment probe, measurement and communications.

"Shijian XII" was developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, a research institution affiliated to state-run China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

China produced its first Long March rocket in 1970. Tuesday marks the 125th flight of Long March rockets.

"Shijian" means practice.

Source: Source: Xinhua

Paris (AFP) June 15, 2010
A former Soviet SS-18 intercontinental missile lofted a trio of European micro-satellites into space on Wednesday, including a satellite to monitor the Sun's impact on climate change, France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) said.

The Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr lifted off at 1442 GMT from Yasny, southern Russia, the CNES said in a press release issued in Paris.

Its triple payload included a 150-kilo (330-pound) French satellite called Picard that will scrutinise the Sun for changes that could affect Earth's climate system.

More than 80 percent of current climate change is attributable to greenhouse gases that trap solar heat, leaving variations in solar output as the other big contributor.

Picard, named after a 17th-century French astronomer who investigated solar activity, will orbit at an altitude of 725 kilometres (453 miles), the CNES said.

It carries a telescope that will take images of the Sun in five wavelengths, and two other instruments to measure the Sun's energy output.

The other passengers aboard the Dnepr were the satellites Mango and Tango, under a Swedish Space Corporation project called Prisma.

They will test new sensors and navigation technologies designed to enable satellites to rendezvous or fly in formation in space.

The SS-18 was code-named "Satan" by NATO in the Cold War's heyday. In the 1990s, a number of the missiles were converted so that they could carry small civilian payloads into low Earth orbit.

Tokyo (AFP) June 15, 2010
Japan's space agency has applied for a Guinness World Records listing after its Hayabusa space probe returned from a seven-year journey to an ancient asteroid, an official said Tuesday.

Hayabusa, "falcon" in Japanese, left Earth in 2003 and returned late Sunday, completing a five-billion-kilometre (three-billion-mile) round trip to the potato-shaped Itokawa asteroid.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, on Monday applied to the London-based Guinness World Records to list Hayabusa's trailblazing journey, an official with the agency said.

"We are seeking its recognition as the first-ever spacecraft that landed on and returned from a celestial body other than the moon, and also for completing the longest ever (space) journey," the official said.

JAXA is not seeking recognition of the total distance Hayabusa travelled as it is a rough estimate and not scientifically important, she said.

As planned, the spacecraft burned up on re-entering Earth's atmosphere, creating a fireball in the night sky over the Australian desert.

Before its fiery end, it released a heatproof sample canister which scientists hope contains material from the asteroid's surface to give them clues on the origins of the solar system.

The pod, which made a textbook parachute landing in the Australian Outback, is to leave Thursday for Japan for analysis.

earlier related report
Asteroid space probe to return to Japan
Sydney (AFP) June 15, 2010 - A space capsule that scientists hope is carrying asteroid dust, potentially revealing secrets about the origins of the solar system, will be flown back to Japan this week, officials said Tuesday.

The precious probe, which made a textbook landing in the Australian Outback on Sunday after a seven-year, five-billion-kilometre (three-billion-mile) journey to the ancient Itokawa asteroid, will be carried on a chartered flight.

"The journey starts Thursday," an official from the Japanese space agency JAXA told AFP from the South Australian desert landing site at Woomera. "It will reach Japan on the 18th (Friday)."

The capsule was carried by the Hayabusa probe, which returned to Earth late Sunday, blazing across the Outback sky as it burned up on re-entry before an enthralled crowd of scientists from Japan, the United States and Australia.

The heat-resistant capsule, which had been ejected earlier, parachuted to a soft landing inside Australia's military testing range at Woomera before being retrieved by helicopter late on Monday.

It will remain within the secure military site until it is taken to Japan.

"They (scientists) are inspecting the outside of the capsule," the JAXA spokesman said.

The probe, which appears intact, is expected to remain sealed for several weeks while it undergoes a battery of tests. So scientists will not know for some months whether it was able to collect any material from the asteroid.

The Hayabusa was launched in May 2003 and reached the Itokawa asteroid in September 2005.

Its return to Earth was delayed for three years by technical problems and scientists had been concerned it might not be able to complete the journey, or could become lost in the vast Australian desert.

JAXA officials were delighted when they were able to land the probe exactly where they predicted, completing an historic mission in which the capsule became the first to complete a journey to an asteroid and back to Earth.

Baikonur, Kazakhstan (AFP) June 16, 2010
A Russian cosmonaut and two American astronauts blasted off Wednesday for a restaffing mission to the International Space Station, Russian television showed in a live broadcast.

The Soyuz-FG rocket lifted off on schedule from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe at 01:35 am (2135 GMT Tuesday) carrying Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and US astronauts Shannon Walker and Douglas Wheelock.

In a pre-flight press conference, the US astronauts admitted to some apprehension about the mission, but voiced their readiness and gratitude.

"I am very happy to be going and maybe just a little afraid," Walker said as quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency, with Wheelock echoing the sentiment.

Yurchikhin's young daughter Elena told her father in a public goodbye that she wanted to follow in his footsteps as a cosmonaut, complaining though that "Mom won't let me" fly to space just yet.

"I am with your mother on this 100 percent," Yurchikhin answered.

Russia's Vesti-24 television news channel showed the team sitting calmly in the cockpit as the rocket fired off into the night sky.

The Soyuz is due to dock with the ISS early Friday.

The mission is the last launch by a Soyuz rocket to the ISS before the US space shuttle program is mothballed later this year, leaving the burden of travel to the ISS entirely on Russian spacecraft.

Despite losing the shuttles Columbia and Challenger in a pair of disasters the programme was considered a resounding success and soon took on the lion's share of responsibility for transporting US astronauts.

A successor to the space shuttle is scheduled to take off no earlier than 2015.

Yasny, Russia (SPX) Jun 16, 2010
The Swedish Prisma satellites have been successfully launched aboard a Dnepr launcher from Yasny, Russia at 14.42 UTC. Sixteen minutes after launch, the two Prisma satellites were released, clamped together in launch configuration.

The mission control center of the Swedish Space Corporation had its first contact with Prisma 16.14 UTC. The operations team could verify that the solar array panels had been deployed as planned and that the satellites are in a nominal state.

During the coming days, all subsystems on both satellites will be successively verified, leading up to the planned separation of the satellites - Mango and Tango - on 3 August.

Prisma will demonstrate break-through technologies for autonomous formation flying and rendezvous. The mission comprises the verification of innovative systems for guidance, navigation and control, software and sensors as well as two propulsion systems. The series of experiments will commence after the separation in August and continue for ten months.

The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) is the prime contractor for Prisma and has developed the major part of the onboard technologies and navigation experiments as well as the mission control software.

The German Aerospace Center DLR, the French space agency CNES and the Danish University of Technology have contributed with navigation experiments, software and sensors.

The environmentally benign propulsion system and the micropropulsion system demonstrated onboard are developed by the SSC companies ECAPS and NanoSpace and make their first spaceflight on Prisma.

The Swedish National Space Board is the initiator of the Prisma mission and finances the project with support from the space agencies of France and Germany.

"Prisma is an excellent platform for the Swedish space industry to qualify its inventions in space", says Olle Norberg, Director General of the Swedish National Space Board.

"The mission will fortify Sweden's position as a prominent technology nation and hopefully open doors to new international space projects where we can contribute."

"SSC is a renowned player in the international space business", says Lars Persson, CEO of the Swedish Space Corporation.

"We really look forward to once again proving our capabilities in satellite development and control, and to the verification of our unique innovations such as the propulsion systems, which we expect to be very prosperous on the international market. We also appreciate the very rewarding cooperation we have with our European partners in this project."

Technologies for autonomous formation flying and rendezvous are required in scientific missions where two or more spacecraft need to interact to form powerful antennas and telescopes. These innovations are also essential in missions that involve docking and inspections of satellites in orbit.