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New Scientist

Instant Expert: Sputnik's Legacy
By Jeff Hecht, 05 Sep. 2007




- Sputnik orbited from October 1957 until January 1958. It beeped back radio signals that were heard around the world. The signals were designed to communicate changes in temperature that Sputnik experienced on its voyage. (Created with Cheetah3D and Terragen.)


The launch of the first satellite, Sputnik, (Wiki Info) on 4 October 1957 forever changed the world. New Scientist delves into the legacy of the pioneering spacecraft. The launch was the starting gun for the space race, embarrassing the US, which was even more chagrined when the rocket meant to launch its first satellite, Vanguard, blew up in front of news cameras two months later. It got its first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit in early 1958.

Nearly 1000 satellites now orbit the Earth, providing a wide range of applications, from communications to weather observation. Robotic spacecraft, such as Pioneer 10 and 11 and the Voyager probes, gave us our first close-ups of the gas giant planets in the outer solar system.


• Photos: Yuri Gagarin


But human spaceflight was the most celebrated result of the space race. The Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit on 12 April 1961. Like Sputnik, the Russians didn't announce Gagarin's fight until he was safely in orbit, but it was a brilliant success for the programme masterminded by Sergei Korolev, a veteran of the Gulag. Weeks later, the US launched Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight in full view of television cameras. The following February, John Glenn became the first American in orbit. Shortly after Shepard's flight, President John F Kennedy said the US should put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.

The space race gained public support, and NASA pushed forward with a series of successful Mercury and Gemini launches. A fire on the ground killed three astronauts testing Apollo 1, but NASA pushed onward. Apollo 8 flew around the Moon in December 1968, humanity's first venture beyond Earth orbit. After two more test flights, NASA landed on the Moon on 20 July 1969, where Neil Armstrong took his famous "giant leap for mankind".

But the last of a dozen men walked on the Moon in December 1972 after President Richard Nixon cancelled further Apollo missions in order to build the space shuttle. The first shuttle reached orbit on 12 April 1981, the 20th anniversary of Gagarin's flight, and brought the spectacular experience of spaceflight even more into the public eye. Its heavy-lift capacity was crucial for getting big spacecraft into orbit. It delivered the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit in 1990, and three years later carried a repair mission that fixed the defects that initially gave Hubble blurry vision - one of many daring space rescues.

Humans have also been spending increasingly long periods of time in space. The Soviet Union launched a series of Salyut space stations in the 1970s and early 1980s and orbited the first module of its Mir Space Station on 19 February 1986, just three weeks after the Challenger disaster. Mir remained in orbit until 2001.

By then, Russia had partnered with the US and other countries on the International Space Station, which is still under construction and critically dependent on the shuttle. Now, NASA has decided to once again move beyond Earth orbit, vowing to send astronauts back to the Moon and on to Mars. With the shuttle set to be grounded in 2010, NASA is developing new rockets and spacecraft for the job. Meanwhile, some children of the Apollo era have accumulated fortunes they want to spend in space. About $20 million buys a visit to the International Space Station. Private spacecraft have reached the edge of space, and a new generation are being developed for space tourism.

What's next for space? Robotic spacecraft are on their way to Mercury and Pluto. Where will robots go next? Will humans ultimately colonise other planets and possibly the whole universe? What kind of rockets could carry us beyond the solar system? It seems the sky's the limit.


- http://cosmoworld.ru

- The view from Space Shuttle Discovery after undocking during the recent STS-128 mission. Credit: NASA

- Sep 23, 2009: NASA astronaut Nicole Stott and European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, both Expedition 20 flight engineers, work the controls of the JEM Robotic Manipulator System (JEM-RMS) in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. De Winne and Stott used the JEM-RMS to grapple the Exposed Pallet (EP) from the station’s Canadarm2 and berth it to the JEM Exposed Facility / Exposed Facility Unit 10. Credit: NASA

- Photos: Soyuz arrives at ISS - more

- The Soyuz TMA-16 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Sept. 30, 2009 carrying NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams, Expedition 21 flight engineer, Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, Soyuz commander; and spaceflight participant Guy Laliberté to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

- Oct 5: Crew members on the International Space Station pose for a group photo following a joint crew news conference in the Harmony node of the International Space Station. Pictured from the left (front row) are European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Expedition 20 flight engineer and Expedition 21 commander; spaceflight participant Guy Laliberte; Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, Expedition 19/20 commander; and NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, Expedition 19/20 flight engineer. From the left (middle row) are Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, Expedition 20/21 flight engineer; NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams, Expedition 21 flight engineer and Expedition 22 commander; and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, Expedition 21/22 flight engineer. Pictured on the back row are NASA astronaut Nicole Stott and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, both Expedition 20/21 flight engineers. Credit: NASA

- Oct 5, 2009: NASA astronaut Nicole Stott and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, both Expedition 20/21 flight engineers, are pictured at the galley in the Unity node of the International Space Station. Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, Expedition 20/21 flight engineer, is mostly out of frame at right. Credit: NASA

- Oct 5, 2009: Crew members on the International Space Station share a meal near the galley in the Zvezda Service Module. Pictured from the left are NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, Expedition 19/20 flight engineer; European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Expedition 20 flight engineer and Expedition 21 commander; Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, Expedition 19/20 commander; Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, Expedition 20/21 flight engineer; and NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams, Expedition 21 flight engineer and Expedition 22 commander; along with NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, Expedition 20/21 flight engineer. Credit: NASA

- October 9. 2009; International Space Station: crews prepare for Expedition 20 departure. NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, Expedition 20 flight engineer, works with her crew quarters compartment in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

- October 9, 2009; Expedition 20 crew members pose for an in-flight crew photo in the Harmony node of the International Space Station. Pictured clockwise are Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka (bottom center), commander; Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, all flight engineers. Credit: NASA

Space.com

Acrobat, Astronauts To Return To Earth
By Clara Moskowitz, 10 October 2009


- Guy Laliberte - Video


A space acrobat and two professional spaceflyers are due to return home to Earth Sunday from the International Space Station. Canadian space tourist and circus clown Guy Laliberte - the founder of Cirque du Soleil - is wrapping up an 11-day paid trip to space, which he dedicated to raising awareness for water conservation. His mission culminated in a performance he hosted Friday night from space, in which artists in 14 cities around the world used dance, song and poetry to celebrate water.

Joining Laliberte on the ride home from space are Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and NASA astronaut Mike Barratt. The trio is due to land in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft at 12:31 a.m. EDT (0431 GMT) Sunday. Hatches between the vehicle and the station are set to close Saturday at 6:00 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT), with undocking scheduled for 9:07 p.m. EDT (0107 GMT Sunday).

Padalka and Barrat are completing a six-month tour of duty on the orbiting laboratory, where Padalka served as commander of the Expedition 20 mission. On Friday he handed control of the station over to European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne of Belgium, who became the first European station commander. "Our mission was very, very long and very productive, and I would say very eventful," Padalka said Tuesday via radio link from the station. "Right now we are ready to go home, and I hope that the space station will be left in a great position for the next commander and the next crew."


- www.popmech.ru


Barratt, a first-time spaceflyer, was an Expedition 20 flight engineer. Waiting for him at home are his wife and five children. "I have a big family and that's the strongest magnet on the planet," Barratt said Monday. "I need to get home to them. But at the same time I'm going to be truly sad to leave this place. This crew up here has become a second family."

Barratt won't have much time to rest once he gets home. While in space, he was assigned to fly on the last scheduled space shuttle mission, the STS-133 flight of Discovery slated for September 2010. He plans to begin training for that mission soon after returning to Earth. "It's been a long time since I've trained on shuttle so as soon as I land, I'm going to hit the books," Barratt said. Padalka and Barratt were part of the space station's first-ever six-person crew, doubled from the previous teams of three. "The main goal of our mission was six-person crew," Padalka said. The expanded population helps keep the station running smoothly and allows astronauts to take on more science research work.

For his part, Laliberte, who paid more than $35 million to the Russian Federal Space Agency (through the U.S. firm Space Adventures), said the trip was worth every penny. "What I've been experiencing here has been an amazing journey," he said. "This was a moment to create awareness toward the situation of water in the world. I don't have 25 years, the world don't have 25 years to address the situation of water. I think this was a great opportunity to combine to a personal dream also."

SPACE.com is providing full coverage Laliberte's fight and the Expedition 20 landing with Staff Writer Clara Moskowitz in New York. Click here for mission updates and live mission coverage. (more)


- Popmech.ru - Track-trading.com

- Oct 7, 2009: Space shuttle Atlantis, secured to the yellow framework of a sling, is lifted by crane toward the transom of High Bay 1 in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Next, Atlantis will be lowered onto a mobile launcher platform in the bay where it will be attached to an external fuel tank and pair of solid rocket boosters. Rollout of the completed shuttle stack to Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A, a significant milestone in launch processing activities, is planned for Oct. 13. Liftoff of Atlantis on its STS-129 mission to the International Space Station is targeted for 4:04 p.m. EST Nov. 12 during a 10-minute launch window. Credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller - More Photos: 1 / 2

- Preparations for Ares I-X launch continue. The Ares I-X rocket stands inside KSC’s Vehicle Assembly Building Bay 3. Ares I-X is the test vehicle for the Ares I, which will eventually carry crewed missions back to the Moon, on to Mars and out into the Solar System . The Ares I-X flight test is targeted for Oct. 27. Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett.

Wired.com

Water On The Moon: LCROSS Kicks Ice!
By Brian McLaughlin November 14, 2009



Image From NASA/LCROSS


Is there water on the Moon? The NASA LCROSS mission has determined the answer to be a resounding YES! GeekDad has covered the LCROSS mission with an article prior to the LCROSS launch by Lonnie Morgan, a pair of articles on viewing what was hoped to be a visible plume from the impact by Dana Bostic and myself, and finally a follow-up to the impact about the process of data analysis and waiting for results. If you have missed all the coverage, the LCROSS mission impacted a spent Centaur booster into the Moon and captured data from the impact plume with the goal of finding deposits of frozen water. Today, the LCROSS team released their preliminary findings:

The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.

Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike.

NASA today opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission successfully uncovered water during the Oct. 9, 2009 impacts into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole.

Congratulations to the entire LCROSS team! (more)


Photos: Water on the Moon
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Global Media Coverage: LCROSS mission data examined, water discovered on the moon.

Nov 15: As the sun sets behind Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the rotating service structure has been moved away from space shuttle Atlantis during the T-11 hour hold in the launch countdown. Liftoff of the STS-129 mission is set for 2:28 p.m. EST Nov. 16. The movable structure, which provides weather protection and access for technicians to work on the shuttle, began being retracted at 5:20 p.m. EST and was in the park position by 5:56 p.m. STS-129 crew members are Commander Charles O. Hobaugh; Pilot Barry E. Wilmore; and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Randy Bresnik, Mike Foreman and Robert L. Satcher Jr. On the STS-129 mission to the International Space Station, the crew will deliver two spare gyroscopes, two nitrogen tank assemblies, two pump modules, an ammonia tank assembly and a spare latching end effector for the station's robotic arm. Atlantis will return to Earth a station crew member, Nicole Stott, who has spent more than two months aboard the orbiting laboratory. STS-129 is slated to be the final space shuttle Expedition crew rotation flight. - Credits: NASA/Troy Cryder

Nov 2: STS-129 Pilot Barry E. Wilmore arrives at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a T-38 jet; credit: NASA/Troy Cryder.