Harimedia Forum

- The Hubble Space Telescope begins its separation from Discovery following its release. The photo was taken during Servicing Mission 2 in 1997. Credit: NASA/ESA (more)
- APOD March 6, 1997 - Hubble Images on the Web




• Space and Astronautix News: NASA Approves STS-125 Mission to Service Hubble and Names Crew.

(high res)

- During Hubble's 100 000th orbit around the Earth it peered into a small portion of the nebula near the star cluster NGC 2074 (upper, left). The region is a firestorm of raw stellar creation, perhaps triggered by a nearby supernova explosion. It lies about 170 000 light-years away near the Tarantula nebula, one of the most active star-forming regions in our Local Group of galaxies. (more)


www.movieloo.info

• GIZMODO: Hubble Completes 100,000th Orbit, takes a breathtaking photo
• Hubblesite: Hubble Celebrates 15th Anniversary with Spectacular New Images
• Video: Hubble servicing mission • MSNBC: Hubble hits 100,000-orbit milestone • Ars Technica




• Science Centric.com: Hubble to get last tune-up during 2009 • Details of Hubble servicing mission • Photos: Hubble sevicing mission

(high res) • About Hubble • 169 Space Photos

Woodside.blogs.com




Like viewing the bushes and trees from the bottom of a pool ...

That's how some astronomers describe observing the night sky with the atmosphere in the way. And so the Hubble Space Telescope was born, free from atmospheric interference at last. In one of Hubble's most dazzling photos ever, Hubble on its 17th anniversary shows us " the fantasy-like landscape of the [Carina] nebula sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno."

Technology has caught up with HST, however. A new land-based telescope 100 times more powerful than HST is already in the works, for instance. And that means it can see 100 times farther than HST. We live in interesting times all right.

AP

NASA chief says keeping space shuttle costs US$3 billion yearly
By Seth Borenstein, AP, Jan. 8, 2009


• Space Shuttle


Washington (AP) - The head of NASA says the cost of continuing the life of the space shuttle past next year's planned retirement is $3 billion a year plus extending the risk of a deadly accident. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told an industry group that NASA has looked into what it would take to keep flying the aging shuttle past 2010. Otherwise, it will mean five years of relying on Russia to get astronauts to the International Space Station. After the 2003 Columbia tragedy, President George W. Bush declared that the United States should head back to the moon in a new spaceship.




- January 7, 2008: Space shuttle Discovery rolls out of Orbiter Processing Facility 3 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to head to the Vehicle Assembly Building (in the background). The Space shuttle is scheduled to roll out to Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, January 14, as preparations for the STS-119 mission move forward. Discovery is targeted to lift off on February 12 to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann


To pay for that, the space shuttle would have to be retired. President-elect Barack Obama has proposed delaying the shuttle's retirement. He and others have expressed concern about the gap between the shuttle's retirement and the new ship's maiden launch. The new spaceship - a capsule called Orion sitting on top of a new rocket called Ares I - won't be ready until March 2015, according to current schedules. However, if the government spends an additional $3 billion over the next two years on the new ship, that first launch could happen a year earlier, Griffin said. He said building the rocket will cost $2.7 billion.




- After rolling out of Orbiter Processing Facility 3 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Discovery turns toward the Vehicle Assembly Building. First motion was at 2:30 p.m. EST. The first motion of the shuttle out of Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building is scheduled for 4 a.m. EST.


There are geopolitical reasons - a matter of American pride and standing in the world - for extending the shuttle's life, Griffin said. However, there are engineering reasons not to do that. Keeping the shuttle flying would divert effort away from a new ship to one that is almost 30 years old. The choice will be up to the new president and Congress. NASA is finishing up a study on what extending the space shuttle program would entail. It should be released later this month, officials said.




- Space shuttle Discovery rolls out of Orbiter Processing Facility 3 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to head to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. First motion was at 2:30 p.m. EST. In the VAB, Discovery will be attached to its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters. After additional preparations are made, the shuttle will be rolled out to Launch Pad 39A for a targeted launch to the International Space Station on Feb. 12. Credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann


Adding new shuttle flights - two a year for up to five years - means more rolls of the dice that there will be a deadly accident. "We would have a one-in-eight chance of losing the crew in one of the 10 flights," Griffin said. He said that's based on the current risk, about one in 80, of a shuttle accident with each flight. It's likely that NASA will get some additional money to shorten the gap because Obama has promised the space agency an extra $2 billion for at least one year, said Smithsonian Institution space scholar John Logsdon, who was an Obama campaign space adviser. Obama's campaign promise was for at least one additional space shuttle flight, but may stop at one, Logsdon said.




- Aboard its transporter, space shuttle Discovery rolls into the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Discovery left Orbiter Processing Facility 3 at 2:30 p.m. EST. The fully assembled space shuttle, consisting of the orbiter, external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters, will be delivered to the pad atop a crawler transporter that will travel slower than 1 mph during the 3.4-mile journey. The process is expected to take approximately six hours. Credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann


Logsdon said he would focus on the new ship instead of extending the shuttle at all. There are three remaining shuttles - Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour - and nine flights scheduled through May 31, 2010. Former NASA exploration chief Scott Horowitz said he worries that if the shuttle flies for five more years it would delay the first launch of the new spaceship. That's because crucial people and key equipment -including a rocket test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center - needed for Orion and Ares are also used for shuttle flights. But Doug Cook, NASA's current associate administrator for exploration, said it would be tough, but "we'd find a way to do it."




- In Orbiter Processing Facility 3 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Discovery is lowered onto a transporter for its move to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann


Horowitz said he thinks the most logical solution would be to extend the shuttle's life by one more year and accelerate the new ship's development a year. It would cost $6 billion and shrink the gap to three years, he said. To speed up development, Cook said, the new administration would have to commit money in the next few months, otherwise it would be too late to launch by 2014.
___

On the Net

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov

Weatherspace.org

NASA Announces Teams for Lunar Science Institute.
By Space and Astronautix News, 01/09/09


• Project Constellation - Returning to the Moon


NASA has selected seven academic and research teams as initial members of the agency’s Lunar Science Institute. The institute supports scientific research to supplement and extend existing NASA lunar science programs in coordination with U.S. space exploration policy. The selection of the members encompasses academic institutions, non-profit research institutes, private companies, NASA centers and other government laboratories.

Selections were based on a competitive evaluation process that began with the release of a cooperative agreement notice in June 2008. The next solicitation opportunity for new members will take place in approximately two years. “We are extremely pleased with the response of the science community and the high quality of proposals received,” said David Morrison, the institute’s interim director at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. “The institute represents a big step forward in developing a new generation of lunar scientists.”

The selected initial member teams are:

• The Moon as Cornerstone to the Terrestrial Planets: The Formative Years; principal investigator Carle Pieters, Brown University in Providence, R.I.
• Scientific and Exploration Potential of the Lunar Poles; principal investigator Ben Bussey, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
• Impact Processes in the Origin and Evolution of the Moon: New Sample-driven Perspectives; principal investigator David Kring, Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston
• Dynamic Response of the Environment at the Moon; principal investigator William Farrell, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
• Understanding the Formation and Bombardment History of the Moon; principal investigator William Bottke, Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.
• Lunar University Node for Astrophysics Research: Exploring the Cosmos from the Moon; principal investigator Jack Burns, University of Colorado in Boulder.
• NASA Lunar Science Institute: Colorado Center for Lunar Dust and Atmospheric Studies; principal investigator Mihaly Horanyi, University of Colorado in Boulder



Video: On the Moon / 2

- Photograph taken by Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, of lunar module pilot Harrison Schmitt standing in front of a large split boulder on the Moon. The lunar rover is in the foreground at left. The picture was taken during the third EVA at the Taurus-Littnow site on the Moon at Station 6, the base of the North Massif. Apollo 17 was launched on 7 December 1972 and landed on the Moon 11 December. It was the last of the Apollo Moon landing missions. Credit: NASA - courtesy of NASA HQ/Ames Research Center


“We look forward to solid contributions from these teams,” said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These are some of the key individuals who will be vital to NASA successfully conducting the ambitious activities of returning to the moon with robots and humans.” Teams were selected from 33 proposals. Based and managed at Ames, the lunar facility is a virtual institute, enabling the newly selected members to remain at their home institutions. Partnerships and collaborations among members are highly encouraged and facilitated through a variety of proven networking tools, such as frequent videoconferences.

Opened in April 2008, the facility is modeled after the NASA Astrobiology Institute, also based at Ames. That institute is a virtual facility that has successfully sustained a productive research program for more than a decade. The newly selected Lunar Institute teams, along with the international associate and affiliate teams, have members working together throughout the world. The institutes are supported by the Science Mission Directorate and Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.


• Space and Astronautix News Index • Ares 1 rocket
• NASA and ESA complete comparative exploration architecture study
• STS-123 - Endeavour: Space Shuttle Processing Status Report.

Space.org

NASA Tests Engine for New Manned Moon Landings.
January 15th, 2009

A technology development engine that may help NASA safely return astronauts to the lunar surface has successfully completed its third round of testing. The goal of these tests is to reduce risk and advance technology for a reliable and robust rocket engine that could enable America’s next Moon landing. The tests by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in West Palm Beach, Fla., helped gather data on this concept engine that might play a role in the next stage of human exploration of the Moon. Most rockets make spacecraft travel faster. The goal of a lunar lander descent engine is to slow the vehicle so astronauts can land safely.

The Common Extensible Cryogenic Engine, or CECE, is a deep-throttling engine, which means it has the flexibility to reduce thrust from 100 percent down to 10 percent - allowing a spacecraft to gently land on the lunar surface. The 13,800-pound thrust engine uses extremely cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as propellants. During the test, the engine was successfully throttled from a high of a 104 percent of the engine’s potential down to eight percent, a record for an engine of this type. A cryogenic engine is needed to provide high performance and put more payload on the surface of the Moon. The CECE demonstrator has evaluated two engine configurations during three rounds of hot-fire testing. MORE »

Reuters

Super-rich still want to boldly go into space
By Ben Hirschler, Jan 28, 2009


BBC News

- Richard Garriott paid a whopping £20 million for the trip aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft.


Davos, Switzerland (Reuters) - The economic downturn has not dampened rich people's enthusiasm for space tourism, the world's first commercial space flight company says. "Business is good," Eric Anderson, chief executive of privately owned Space Adventures, told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

The U.S. company has sold seats worth about $175 million (122 million pound) on Russian rockets to the International Space Station and is preparing to send Hungarian computer software executive Charles Simonyi into space for the second time in March. His $35-million trip will be the seventh arranged by Space Adventures since U.S. multimillionaire Dennis Tito paid for a trip into space in 2001.

Such journeys could be threatened by Russian plans to double the size of the space station's professional crew although Space Adventures reached a deal with Russia's Federal Space Agency last year to launch its own private trip to the station in 2011. "Access to Soyuz seats is becoming more difficult, which is why we purchased our own mission," Anderson said, referring to the Soyuz spacecraft used by Moscow. Several customers have put down deposits for future space travel, including Sergey Brin, co-founder of U.S. company Google.

Anderson is hoping to drum up more business among the world's business elite in Davos this week but customers should not expect any bargains because of the global financial turmoil. A standard trip to the space station carries a price tag of $35-45 million. For an extra $10 million you have the chance to be the first private citizen to walk in space.
___

• Reuters: Global crisis politics - A Davos debate with Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer

space.gs

Landmark year ahead for European Space Agency Earth observation science missions.
By Space News, January 24th, 2009





Earth Explorers are developed in direct response to the needs of the science community and cover a broad range of science issues to further our understanding of the Earth system. Earth Explorers focus on the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and the Earth’s interior with the overall emphasis on learning more about the interactions between these components and the impact that human activity is having on natural Earth processes. Credit: ESA





About 90 minutes after launch and almost one orbit around the Earth, the Rockot Breeze upper-stage is oriented to inject the GOCE spacecraft into orbit. This happens around 295 km above central Europe within range of the ground stations in Kiruna in northern Sweden and Svalbard north of Norway. At this point, the first confirmation that all is well with the satellite is expected. GOCE is launched into a Sun-synchronous, near-circular orbit with an inclination of 96.7 degrees. Credit: ESA - AOES Medialab





SMOS payload undergoing testing in the Large Space Simulator at ESA-ESTEC in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. A ’solar beam’, six metres in diameter, was repeatedly shone onto instrument. The instrument was also subjected to low temperatures of deep space. These tests simulated the different intensities of solar radiation the satellite will experience in orbit. Credit: ESA





CryoSat can distinguish between altimetry signals returned from sea ice and open water - the difference between the two is known as the ‘freeboard’, and can be used to derive ice thickness. Over topographic surfaces, the first radar echo comes from the nearest point to the satellite. CryoSat can measure the angle from which this echo originates, so that the source point can be located on the ground. This, in turn, allows the height of that point to be determined. Credit: ESA - AOES Medialab





These six candidate Earth Explorer Core missions have just completed assessment study and will be presented to the science community at a User Consultation Meeting in January 2009. Subsequently, up to three of the missions will be selected for the next stage of development (feasibility study), leading to the eventual launch of ESA’s seventh Earth Explorer mission around 2016. Credit: ESA - AOES Medialab

- courtesy of European Space Agency

» ISS Status Report.

Space.gs

COROT Space telescope discovers smallest exoplanet yet, with a surface to walk on
European Space Agency, 3 February 2009




- Planet transit in front of a star. One of the methods for detecting exoplanets is to look for the drop in brightness they cause when they pass in front of their parent star. Such a celestial alignment is known as a planetary transit. From Earth, both Mercury and Venus occasionally pass across the front of the Sun. When they do, they look like tiny black dots passing across the bright surface. Such transits block a tiny fraction of the light that COROT is able to detect. Credit: CNES


[url=hhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COROT]COROT[/url] has found the smallest terrestrial planet ever detected outside the Solar System. The amazing planet is less than twice the size of Earth and orbits a Sun-like star. Its temperature is so high that it is possibly covered in lava or water vapour. About 330 exoplanets have been discovered so far, most of which are gas giants with characteristics similar to Jupiter and Neptune. The new find, COROT-Exo-7b, is different: its diameter is less than twice that of Earth and it orbits its star once every 20 hours.

It is located very close to its parent star, and has a high temperature, between 1000 and 1500 degrees C. Astronomers detected the new planet as it transited its parent star, dimming the light from the star as it passed in front of it. The density of the planet is still under investigation: it may be rocky like Earth and covered in liquid lava. It may also belong to a class of planets that are thought to be made up of water and rock in almost equal amounts. Given the high temperatures measured, the planet would be a very hot and humid place. "Finding such a small planet was not a complete surprise", said Daniel Rouan, researcher at the Observatoire de Paris Lesia, who coordinates the project with Alain Leger, from Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (Paris, France). "COROT-Exo-7b belongs to a class of objects whose existence had been predicted for some time.

COROT was designed precisely in the hope of discovering some of these objects," he added. Very few exoplanets found so far have a mass comparable to Earth's and the other terrestrial planets: Venus, Mars, and Mercury. This is because terrestrial planets are extremely difficult to detect. Most of the methods used so far are indirect and sensitive to the mass of the planet, while COROT can directly measure the size of its surface, which is an advantage. In addition, its location in space allows for longer periods of uninterrupted observation than from ground. This discovery is significant because recent measurements have indicated the existence of planets of small masses but their size remained undetermined until now.

The internal structure of COROT-exo-7b particularly puzzles scientists; they are unsure whether it is an 'ocean planet', a kind of planet whose existence has never been proved so far. In theory, such planets would initially be covered partially in ice and they would later drift towards their star, with the ice melting to cover it in liquid. "This discovery is a very important step on the road to understanding the formation and evolution of our planet," said Malcolm Fridlund, ESA's COROT Project Scientist. "For the first time, we have unambiguously detected a planet that is 'rocky' in the same sense as our own Earth. We now have to understand this object further to put it into context, and continue our search for smaller, more Earth-like objects with COROT," he added.

This discovery benefited from complementary observations made thanks to an extensive European telescope network operated by various institutes and countries. The European Southern Observatory at Paranal and La Silla (Chile), the 80-cm telescope at the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute, and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii (CNRS, CNRC, and University of Hawaii). The findings will appear in 'Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission VII. COROT-Exo-7b: The first super-earth with radius characterized' by A. Leger , D. Rouan , J. Schneider , R. Alonso , B. Samuel , E. Guenther , M. Deleuil , H.J. Deeg , M. Fridlund, et al. to be submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics.

COROT (planetary convection, rotation and transits) is a mission led by the French Space Agency (CNES), with contributions from ESA, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Brazil. It is a telescope placed in Earth orbit that was launched in December 2006 carrying a 27 cm-diameter telescope designed to detect tiny changes the brightness of nearby stars. The mission's main objectives are to search for exoplanets and to study stellar interiors.

Examiner.com

Satellite collision spews drifting debris clouds, adding to dangerous space junk
by Patricia Phillips, February 12, Space News Examiner





Iridium has tenatively identified the Russian satellite that mugged one of their operational communications satellites earlier this week, destroying both in a historic space dust-up. Although governrment sources have yet to confirm all details, the company says that the 1993-vintage, defunct Russian Cosmos class satellite was originally fueled by an onboard nuclear reactor.

Given the age of the satellite, and where the satellites collided-- about 491 miles up-- early speculation is that there's very little chance of any radioactive debris reaching Earth. The bigger problem--the several hundred pieces of smashed-up space junk that have now joined the huge litter bin surrounding Earth. Shown above: an earlier European Space Agency's artist's depiction of the space junk operating Earth. Tuesday's collision sent about 300 or more pieces of debris outward in a floating debris cloud, joining more than 17,000 estimated pieces of space junk already out there.

Although NASA says that the new debris probably won't impact (literally) either the International Space Station or the upcoming space shuttle launch, they're monitoring the situation. All space shuttle launches must be calibrated to avoid impacting any already-existing space debris within the flight and orbital path. There might be a slight risk for the Hubble Space Telescope, depending on how the orbits of the fragments decay. The Hubble is about 380 miles up, and the space station is about 250 miles up.

The Iridium weighed just over 1,200 pounds while the Cosmos weighed more than a ton. They collided over Siberia about noon on Tuesday EST. A question for space lawyers--can Iridium sue the Russian government for losing control of its satellite and knocking out one of their working commercial satellites? As a starting point, here's the U.N. Outer Space Treaty. NASA's Orbital Debris Program office maintains a reference on orbital debris guidelines and international working groups. More...

Space.gs

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Begins Journey to Kennedy Space Center.
By Space News, February 11th, 2009




- Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - artist’s impression; credit: NASA


NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, spacecraft was loaded on a truck Wednesday to begin its two-day journey to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch is targeted for April 24. The spacecraft was built by engineers at Goddard, where it recently completed two months of tests in a thermal vacuum chamber. During its time in the chamber, the spacecraft was subjected to hot and cold temperatures it will experience as it orbits the Moon.

The satellite’s mission is one of the first steps in NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the Moon. LRO will spend at least one year in a low polar orbit on its primary exploration mission, with the possibility of three more years to collect additional detailed scientific information about the Moon and its environment. The orbiter will carry seven instruments to provide scientists with detailed maps of the lunar surface and enhance our understanding of the Moon’s topography, lighting conditions, mineralogical composition and natural resources. Information gleaned from LRO will be used to select safe landing sites, determine locations for future lunar outposts and help mitigate radiation dangers to astronauts.

The polar regions of the Moon are the main focus of the mission because continuous access to sunlight may be possible and water ice may exist in permanently shadowed areas of the poles. ‘This is the culmination of four years of hard work by everyone on the LRO Project,’ said Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. ‘LRO now begins its launch site processing, where it will be prepped for integration with our sister mission LCROSS, and eventually encapsulated in the Atlas V for its journey to the Moon.’ LRO’s instruments have considerable heritage from previous planetary science missions, enabling the spacecraft to transition to a research phase under the direction of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate one year after launch.

Accompanying LRO on its journey to the Moon will be the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, a mission that will impact the lunar surface in its search for water ice. The LCROSS mission is managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Goddard manages the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington.
____

• Space News: Swift and Fermi Probe Observe Blasts from Stellar Remnant.
- Astronomers using NASA’s Swift satellite and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are seeing frequent blasts from a stellar remnant 30,000 light-years away. The high-energy fireworks arise from a rare type of neutron star known as a soft-gamma-ray repeater. Such objects unpredictably send out a series of X-ray and gamma-ray flares. ‘At times, this remarkable object has erupted with more than a hundred flares in as little as 20 minutes,’ said Loredana Vetere, who is coordinating the Swift observations at Pennsylvania State University. ‘The most intense flares emitted more total energy than the Sun does in 20 years.’ (more) • Space News: NASA Tests Engine for New Manned Moon Landings.


• ISS, Space News

Space, Astronautix News: STS-119: Space Shuttle Discovery Arrives at Launch Pad

Euronews

Space debris falls on Texas
By Euronews 16/02/09


www.satnews.com


Debris believed to be that of a recent satellite collision in space has been seen falling across Texas in the US. TV crews captured a fireball hurtling to earth while they were filming a marathon near the state capital Austin.

For golfers at a local course, it was the last thing they expected to see. Eyewitness Jerry Swartz said: ‘‘We were amazed and shocked. We were waiting to see if there was any more debris that might be coming out of the sky. It made us pause a minute to look around. We sort of expected to see some sort of explosion.’‘

The space collision saw an American telecoms satellite hit a defunct Russian military bird last week. The crash and its resulting debris has raised the issue of just how full near-space around Earth actually is, and increased calls for tighter regulation with more than 18,000 man-made objects currently in orbit. (more)

AP

European Space Agency Hopes To Clean Up Space Junk
By Associated Press, Feb. 16, 2009


• www.cdscc.nasa.gov

- European Space Agency sets up new program to track space debris. On Feb. 10, the collision of two satellites generated space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years.


Darmstadt, Germany, (AP) -- Wary of the multitude of satellites in earth's orbit, the European Space Agency has begun a program to monitor space debris and set up uniform standards to prevent future collisions far above the planet, an official said Monday.

The euro50 million ($64 million) program _ dubbed Space Situational Awareness _ aims to increase information for scientists on the ground about the estimated 13,000 satellites and other man-made bodies orbiting the planet, ESA space debris expert Jean-Francois Kaufeler told reporters. The program was launched in January. On Feb. 10, the collision of two satellites generated space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years. "What the last accident showed us is that we need to do much more. We need to be receiving much more precise data in order to prevent further collisions," Kaufeler said of the collision.

The smashup happened 500 miles (800 kilometers) over Siberia and involved a derelict Russian spacecraft designed for military communications and a working satellite owned by U.S.-based Iridium, which served commercial customers as well as the U.S. Defense Department. A key element of the program is to increase the amount of information shared worldwide between the various space agencies, including NASA and Russia's Roscosmos, Kaufeler said. Kaufeler also said that another aspect that must be examined is establishing international standards on how debris is described, tracked and, if needed, moved so as to prevent any collisions. U.S. and Russian officials traded shots over who should be blamed for the collision that spewed speeding clouds of debris into space, threatening other unmanned spacecraft in nearby orbits.

No one has any idea yet how many pieces of space junk were generated by the collision or how big they might be. But the crash scattered space junk in orbits 300 to 800 miles (500 to 1,300 kilometers) above Earth, according to Maj. Gen. Alexander Yakushin, chief of staff for the Russian military's Space Forces. Experts in space debris will meet later this week in Vienna at a U.N. seminar to come up with better ways to prevent future crashes, and the 5th European Conference on Space Debris in March at ESA. "We need more precision in space," said Kaufeler. "The current measurements (of space debris) are not precise enough." He noted that neither ESA nor NASA were able to predict last week's collision, although his scientists have been warning for two decades that such an accident could happen. "The problem of space debris is unique," said Kaufeler. "We need to work together, we need to unify our forces if we are going to solve it."


• Space Telescope Photos


Also this year, the Europeans plan to launch two new telescopes into space to study the far reaches of space. The Planck telescope will map background radiation that fills space, while the Herschel space telescope will give astronomers a view of far-infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths.


• Krishna.org.ua

• Space News: Swift and Fermi Probe Observe Blasts from Stellar Remnant.