NASA: Earth narrowly escapes asteroid’s ‘deep impact’

The asteroid, which NASA said is almost the same size as a regular commercial bus, passed by Earth at 1700 GMT and kept a distance of at least 12,000 kilometres above the planet before its gravity forced the stray rock from entering out atmosphere.

However, NASA has clarified that despite its size, the asteroid named by scientists as 2011 MD would normally be harmless once it enters Earth's atmosphere as the rock will splinter and burn if its composition is largely made of stones.

The space agency admitted though that it will be a different story if the asteroid proved to be fortified by iron minerals, which can survive the fiery friction upon impact on the planet's atmosphere.

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Sunset rocket launch may light up Eastern skies

NASA plans to launch a new military satellite from a Virginia spaceport late Tuesday (June 28), a flight that could potentially create a spectacular sight for skywatchers along the U.S. East Coast.

The U.S. Air Force's Minotaur 1 rocket is slated to blast off from a NASA launch range at the Wallops Flight Facility and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at 8:28 p.m. EDT (0028 GMT). The mission: To launch ORS-1, a Department of Defense satellite built for the Operationally Responsive Space Office.

ORS-1 would be the Operationally Responsive Space Office's first working satellite. The spacecaft is considered an "important step to demonstrate the capability to meet emerging and persistent war-fighter needs," NASA officials said in a statement. It is also expected to support the military's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance needs by hosting an innovative sensor system.

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Orion capsule model arrives on the Space Coast

A massive capsule which looks like the Orion Capsule is now on the Space Coast. NASA crews towed it on the back of a tractor trailer from Edwards Air Force Base in California.

It is called a flight test article, 17 feet wide, and took up two lanes of traffic. It is looks like the Orion Capsule, but it's not designed to travel into space. NASA used it last May to test its effectiveness in the event of an emergency on the rocket if the astronauts had to escape.

Crew members said it was interesting to see the capsule on busy highways.

Wayne Hicks is the NASA Operations Engineer who was one of several people who transported the massive capsule. Hicks said, “Most of the time we were on two way back roads, so it was very interesting that the police that were traveling with us would stop traffic and pull them to the side of the road. We were going on a two way highway going 60 miles an hour, that was fun. "

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The Case of NASA's Contraband Sticky Tape

What has a tiny sliver of sticky tape being sold in a St. Louis, Mo., auction house got to do with NASA? And why the heck did the government agency swoop in to claim said sticky tape?

Sounding like a storyline crossed between X-Files and a Monty Python sketch, this is an entertaining tidbit of space history that began over 40 years ago.

SEE ALSO: The Case of the Contraband Corned Beef Sandwich

According to The New York Times, the United States attorney's office for eastern Missouri announced Thursday that it had recovered "stolen" government property.

Either the government takes sticky tape pilfering very seriously, or the triangular piece of sticky tape, measuring only 1/8th of an inch wide, was very special. Fortunately for all of us who have "borrowed" rolls of tape from the office, it's the latter. The tape has specks of moon dust stuck to it, dating back to the Apollo moon landings.

But how did the dust get stuck to some sticky tape only for it to appear 40 years later in Missouri?

ANALYSIS: Got Dust? Acoustic Levitation Might Clear It

The story begins with Terry Slezak, the photographer in charge of developing photographs taken by the astronauts who trekked across the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972.

On one occasion, Slezak opened a canister containing photographic film, only to spill moon dust that had collected inside. After all, judging by the photographs (below) and stories from Apollo astronauts, moon dust gets everywhere. The dust spilled over Slezak's hands and film magazine, so to avoid the abrasive dust from damaging the bare film, he used Scotch tape and towels to remove it. The tape, plus moon dust, was left hanging in his dark room.

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The incredible journey of NASA spacecraft Dawn

NASA spacecraft Dawn, the largest probe ever launched by the agency, is slowly approaching protoplanet Vesta, where it will spend a year in exploratory orbit before moving on to Ceres.

NASA's pioneering Dawn spacecraft, a year late in being launched and 20% over budget, is slowly creeping up on the protoplanet Vesta and is expected to enter orbit around it about July 16, the first stop on a remarkable journey that will later take the craft to the larger dwarf planet Ceres.

The craft, the largest probe ever launched by NASA, is about half-way through its three-month approach phase to Vesta, 96,000 miles away and closing in at the sedate speed of about 260 mph.

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As shuttle program ends, new opportunities emerge

This is a challenging time of transition for our space industry, but the future is far from bleak for the workers who made the space shuttle program and other NASA ventures successful.

Thousands of highly skilled workers will be laid off when NASA ends the shuttle program. That means as many as 400 workers in Volusia County will lose their jobs.

The layoffs certainly won't help the struggling Florida economy. But hope for the future comes in the form of new aviation-related projects and budding aerospace technologies.

For instance, the growth of new technologies in the Daytona Beach area, including NextGen air-traffic control at Daytona Beach International Airport, could help buoy the regional economy.

Still, it will be a tough transition for the shuttle workers, some of whom have already taken jobs at technology companies in other states. These workers, who worked both for NASA and the private sector assisting the shuttle flights, have solid technical resumes, which are in demand even in this economy.

Volusia County officials hope to keep many of these employees in the area. A local plan to develop aerospace businesses is in place, but depends in large part on the growth of the 90-acre research park planned by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

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How NASA, DARPA Are Keeping Kids Interested In Space

The end of the Space Shuttle era is slightly depressing. NASA won't be flying its own astronauts into space for a while, either, putting a further damper on the good PR that comes from the visually and intellectually stimulating space program, which encourages students of engineering and science. To keep folks interested, NASA and DARPA are pushing (a little) money into a program that's directly aimed at students themselves.

Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) are an existing experiment that uses tiny ball-shaped robots that fly inside the International Space Station. They test techniques for keeping real satellites maneuvering in sync so that they can rendezvous and work as part of a swarm--a task that's useful for autonomous satellite servicing, and even the building of future spacecraft.

The offer that NASA's making is that if you design an interesting experiment, and it wins their approval, it'll be used to fly the SPHERES robots for real. In space.

NASA says the program is designed to inspire future scientists and engineers by building critical skills in designing an experiment, in "problem solving, design thought process, operations training, team work and presentation skills." It's dubbed "Zero Robotics," and to register you have to simply visit a couple of NASA websites, design your experiment, and submit it online. Twenty-seven teams will be chosen to have their codes executed by an astronaut operating the SPHERES at a later date.

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NASA capsule makes landing outside Bullock museum

With NASA moving the spacecraft that could eventually shuttle astronauts into deep space from California to Florida for further testing, the feeling was: Why not show it off along the way?

Thus a road show, with a pricey piece of NASA hardware on display through 7:30 p.m. today outside the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.Known officially as a multipurpose crew vehicle, it's an old-school-looking capsule that resembles the bowl-shaped ones used in the Apollo and Mercury programs.

But as part of the Orion program, the successor to the space shuttle program, it has state-of-the-art propulsion, life support, thermal protection and avionics systems, according to NASA officials.

You can't go into the vehicle, which is a test-ready mockup of one that will deliver four astronauts at a time into space. But you can peek inside for free and talk to engineers who have worked on the vehicle.

The capsule was used in 2010 to test whether a mission could be safely aborted on a launch pad or in flight. During the test flight in New Mexico, a launch abort system propelled the spacecraft off the launch pad to a speed of almost 445 mph in three seconds as it shot a mile into the air. The spacecraft then parachuted to the desert floor.

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DARPA, NASA seek ideas for starship travel

NASA and DARPA want the U.S. to be sending humans on interstellar space missions by 2111, and officials are seeking your help in accomplishing that goal.

The two agencies today jointly put out a call today for ideas and abstracts for possible presentation at the 100 Year Starship Study Symposium, which is set to be held in Orlando Sept. 30 through Oct. 2.

The project pairs up the U.S. Department of Defense's research arm -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) -- with NASA's Ames Research Center. With DARPA footing the bill, the two agencies are working to come up with a plan for creating technology that can help humans travel to the stars within 100 years.

"One hundred years is a pretty good period of time to inspire research to go out and tackle problems that will have you asking questions you didn't even know to ask at the beginning," said David Neyland, director of the Tactical Technology Office for DARPA, today. "The investment must have a long-term goal and ancillary benefits to the government and NASA."

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NASA tests shuttle fuel tank before its last launch

Workers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center filled the fuel tank of the space shuttle Atlantis Wednesday in a key test ahead of its scheduled launch next month on the final shuttle flight.

The test was added after structural problems were found last year on a tank later used for the February launch of sister ship Discovery. NASA reinforced metal supports inside both tanks. Wednesday's test was aimed at verifying the Atlantis tank repairs ahead of its scheduled July 8 liftoff.

"It's very straightforward," launch director Mike Leinbach said. "We fill it up, send the final inspection team out to the pad, they'll do their walk-down ... and then we'll get the 'go' for drain. That's it."

A week's worth of X-ray photography will follow to assure that the metal struts withstood the extreme temperatures generated by 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen inside the tank.

NASA was assessing what seemed to be a valve leak in one of the shuttle's three main engines that appeared during the tank test. If the valve needs to be replaced, preliminary indications show the work could be done without impacting the targeted July 8 launch, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said. (NBC News reported that the launch team will assess the potential impact on the launch schedule more fully on Thursday.)

New Vesta Images Dazzle Ahead of NASA Probe's Arrival

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has sent U.S. space agency scientists tantalizing new images of the mysterious protoplanet Vesta, one month before the unmanned probe is scheduled to arrive at the asteroid-belt object to begin its one-year scientific mission.

The 20 new images revealed a shining outline of Vesta’s jagged, irregular shape, as well as a large unidentified dark feature on its surface that astronomers estimate is 100 kilometers across.

Scientists believe that unraveling Vesta’s many mysteries will provide a kind of “snapshot” of the early Earth’s formation more than four billion years ago. That is because Vesta is largely unchanged since that time, whereas the Earth has evolved dramatically through the ages.

With a diameter of 525 kilometers, Vesta is the second-largest object in the main asteroid belt, a gathering of rocky space debris between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The giant rock's highly-reflective surface makes it the belt's brightest.

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NASA will launch iPhone into space

A company in Houston called Odyssey Space Research LLC, has created an app to be used for research on the International Space Station. When NASA’s shuttle Atlantis launches later this year on its final mission, it will carry an iPhone or two into orbit for testing.

How will the phone work in free fall? No one’s sure. The photos probably won’t flip when it’s tilted, though.

Brian Rishikof, CEO of Odyssey Space Research, said the iPhone 4 is a good enough device that it can replace more costly devices that have to be purpose built for space research. The Odyssey app will be used by teachers, scientists and space happy earthlings to “recreate the experiments as if onboard the ISS itself,” Odyssey said.

Another Houston business, NanoRacks LLC, is helping to get the iPhone to the space station.

Any phones that visit the space station, however, won’t be coming back on the shuttle -- Atlantis’ flight will be the last of that program and the phones will be spending months in orbit. A Russian Soyuz capsule will carry them back to earth when their mission is complete.

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NASA will launch iPhone into space

A company in Houston called Odyssey Space Research LLC, has created an app to be used for research on the International Space Station. When NASA’s shuttle Atlantis launches later this year on its final mission, it will carry an iPhone or two into orbit for testing.

How will the phone work in free fall? No one’s sure. The photos probably won’t flip when it’s tilted, though.

Brian Rishikof, CEO of Odyssey Space Research, said the iPhone 4 is a good enough device that it can replace more costly devices that have to be purpose built for space research. The Odyssey app will be used by teachers, scientists and space happy earthlings to “recreate the experiments as if onboard the ISS itself,” Odyssey said.

Another Houston business, NanoRacks LLC, is helping to get the iPhone to the space station.

Any phones that visit the space station, however, won’t be coming back on the shuttle -- Atlantis’ flight will be the last of that program and the phones will be spending months in orbit. A Russian Soyuz capsule will carry them back to earth when their mission is complete.

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Wanted: A high-tech high heel worthy of NASA

Creating a product for lunar travel means ultimate attention paid to mass, volume, and versatility. The Moon Life, created by United Nude — the shoe company of Rem D. Koolhaas, big Rem's nephew — isn't rocket-bound anytime soon, but it makes you wonder what our earthly products would look like if every designer were so economical.

The shoe arrives flat-packed and disassembled, its constituent parts made of carbon fiber, leather, and thin-gauge wire.

The customer assembles the parts using inserts corresponding to their shoe size, and spans the wire around the platform.

Thus is formed a ghostly shoe for which a thick bed of moon dust is no obstacle.

According to United Nude, the shoe also functions well in "gravity rich" environments as well, and soon you'll be able to buy it.

The final version of the product is still being refined in anticipation of a very small production run, which will be sold here, as well as at museum gift shops and UnitedNude.com this summer.

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NASA spacecraft gathering data on protoplanet

The Dawn spacecraft launched in 1997 and is just now reaching Vesta, a small protoplanet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

A space mission that has been nearly 20 years in the making is about to reach its destination 143 million miles from Earth.

"It's been a long trip," said Christopher T. Russell, a UCLA professor of geophysics and space physics, who has been in charge of the mission since its inception in 1992. "Finally, the moment of truth is about to arrive."

The Dawn spacecraft, a small satellite loaded with cameras and multiple types of spectrometers launched in 1997, will arrive at Vesta, a small protoplanet in the asteroid belt that separates Mars and Jupiter, in July.

Scientists hope the data that Dawn gathers will provide more information about the early formation of the solar system.

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Voyager spacecraft see hints of huge magnetic bubbles

NASA's aging Voyager spacecraft, more than three decades outbound from Earth and approaching the outermost limits of the solar system, may be seeing signs of what scientists believe are huge magnetic bubbles churning at the interface between the sun's influence and interstellar space. The unexpected bubbles, shaped like sausages more than 100 million miles across, likely affect how high-energy cosmic rays pass into the inner solar system and may shed light on how stars interact with their galactic environments.

"It's exciting. We're learning new things almost every day," Voyager project scientist Ed Stone said.

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NASA Set to Launch Salt-Measuring Satellite Tomorrow

NASA is gearing up for the launch of its new Aquarius observatory, which will help map out the links between Earth's climate and the saltiness of its oceans.

Aquarius is slated to blast off Friday (June 10) at 10:20 a.m. EDT (1420 GMT)atop a Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NASA had originally scheduled the launch for June 9, butthe space agency announced Wednesday evening that it had pushed the liftoff back a day to work out some software issues with the rocket's flight program.

The $287 million Aquarius/SAC-D will join 13 other NASA satellite missions devoted to studying Earth from above. But Aquarius will bring something new to the table, researchers say. Its precise measurements should allow unprecedented insights into global patterns of precipitation, evaporation and ocean circulation — key drivers of our planet's changing climate.

"In order to study these interactions between the global water cycle and the ocean circulation, the piece that we're missing is ocean salinity," Gary Lagerloef, Aquarius principal investigator at Earth and Space Research in Seattle, said in a briefing Tuesday. "And that's the gap that Aquarius is designed to fill."

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“Spectacular” solar flare sails from sun, will glance earth

The sun emitted a “spectacular” solar flare on Tuesday, June 07. The flare peaked at 1:41 a.m. ET, according to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

The flare is moving away from the sun at 1400 km/s. Although it’s not squarely aimed at the earth, it should deliver a “glancing blow to the Earth’s magnetic field” during the late hours of June 8th or on June 9th.

The earth is 150 million km away from the sun.

This means the solar storm could disrupt power grids, satellites, and may cause the rerouting of some flights away from the Polar Regions, said Bill Murtagh of National Weather Service, reported AFP.

NASA said the solar flare covered an area almost half the solar surface upon eruption.

The sun has magnetic areas on its surface that are visually dark because the magnetic fields allow the areas to cool. These areas are called sunspots and can be larger than the size of the earth. Groups of sunspots sometimes spawn solar flares, or radiation eruptions that go out into the space. They are our solar system’s largest explosive events, according to NASA.

Below are one video and one photo of the unusual solar flare that occurred on June 07.

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Final space shuttle to feature 'nose art'

When the space shuttle launches on its final mission next month, it will be adorned with the same markings it has always been — the United States flag and the NASA logo — with one subtle but special addition.

Launch spectators may find it difficult to see, but painted on an access door near the top of the shuttle's fuel tank will be 'nose art' paying tribute to the winged vehicles' 30 year legacy. It'll be only the second time in 135 missions that the space shuttle has lifted off with a commemorative emblem painted on its side.

The colorful design, which was created and chosen earlier this year through a contest for NASA's past and present employees, has already been reproduced on medallions, embroidered cloth patches and t-shirts — some of which have already flown on board previous shuttle missions. This next and last launch however, will mark its premiere on the side of a spacecraft.

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Space Shuttle's Secret Alter Ego: Crime Fighter

When NASA's shuttle Endeavour landed in Florida Wednesday (June 1) to end its last-ever trip into space, the orbiter also apparently doubled as a crime-fighting machine.

As Endeavour re-entered Earth's atmosphere and glided toward the runway at Kennedy Space Center at a blistering pace, the orbiter heralded its arrival with two sonic booms — a trademark of all shuttle landings. The shuttle's sonorous notes woke up a Florida woman who then witnessed two men inside her car in her driveway and called the police, according to the Osceola County Sheriff's Office.

The fortuitous wake-up call led to the arrest of two men suspected in at least five car burglaries and one residential burglary in the Florida subdivision of Remington. [Photos of Shuttle Endeavour's Last Landing]

Officers from the Osceola County Sheriff's Office responded to a call on Amanda Kay Way in Kissimmee, Fla., at 2:31 a.m. EDT (0631 GMT). Endeavour touched down at NASA's Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center at 2:34 a.m. EDT (0634 GMT).

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NASA to measure salt in world's oceans

A NASA instrument will measure salt levels in Earth's oceans, a factor considered a key driver of ocean processes and the word's climate, researchers say.

The Aquarius instrument, set to launch this month aboard a satellite built by Argentina's space agency, will use its salt-seeking sensors to make comprehensive measurements of ocean surface salinity with the precision needed to help researchers better determine how Earth's ocean interacts with the atmosphere to influence climate, a release for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said Thursday.

This salinity is a key indicator of how Earth's freshwater moves between the ocean, land and atmosphere, the release said.

"We ultimately want to predict climate change and have greater confidence in our predictions," Aquarius principal investigator Gary Lagerloef said. "But, a climate model's forecast skill is only as good as its ability to accurately represent modern-day observations."

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Where's the carbon? NASA maps it

Half of it is held in the forests of Latin America. Brazil alone has nearly as much as all of sub-Saharan Africa.

For the first time, NASA scientists have mapped precisely how much carbon is locked in the world's tropical forests -- a key to understanding climate change.

The map reveals that, of a total of 247 billion tons of carbon trapped in forest wood and tissues in 75 tropical countries, Latin America holds 49 percent.

The data cover the period between 2000 and 2003, though the carbon levels probably haven't changed much since, said environmental physicist Sassan S. Saatchi of Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who led the study.

The findings should help scientists refine computer models that predict future effects of climate change, as well as helping tropical nations determine how much carbon they are storing.

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NASA Says A Final Goodbye To Plucky Mars Rover

NASA has pulled the plug on one of its two Mars rovers. Spirit hasn't been heard from in more than a year, and now the space agency says it's abandoning hope that it will hear from the rover again.

Any disappointment that Spirit's mission has come to an end has to be tempered by the fantastic success of the robotic explorer. Intended to last 90 days, Spirit operated in Gusev Crater on Mars for more than six Earth years.
Indeed, just landing safely on Mars has to be considered a success, since the red planet has a way of devouring space missions.

"When we landed, the view was spectacular, and everybody was very excited about the successful engineering achievement," says Jim Bell, now at Arizona State University. Bell was in charge of the main cameras on the rover. "What wasn't so clear is that there was a lot of scientific disappointment."

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