Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

July 30, 2014

Titan Offers Clues to Atmospheres of Hazy Planets
Moffet Field CA (NASA) Jul 30, 2014
When hazy planets pass across the face of their star, a curious thing happens. Astronomers are not able to see any changes in the range of light coming from the star and planet system. This presents a puzzling problem for scientists trying to find out what is inside planetary atmospheres. Usually, astronomers can look at a star before and after a large planet goes across, note the difference in the spectrum, and make predictions about what elements are contained in the planet's atmosphere. If the ... read more

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Magnets for fusion energy The National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) in Japan, has achieved an electrical current of 100,000 amperes, which is by far the highest i ... more		Science and Spacesuit Work While ATV-5 Preps for Launch The six-member Expedition 40 crew spent Monday on science work and spacesuit maintenance on the International Space Station. Meanwhile, on the ground in Kourou, French Guiana, the European Space Age ... more		NASA's Mars Spacecraft Maneuvers to Prepare for Close Comet Flyby NASA is taking steps to protect its Mars orbiters, while preserving opportunities to gather valuable scientific data, as Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring heads toward a close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19. ... more
				Bepicolombo Integration Testing Completed At Thales Integration and functional testing activities for the protoflight models of the BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter, Mercury Transfer Module, and Magnetospheric Orbiter Sunshield and Interface Str ... more		Hubble Finds Three Surprisingly Dry Exoplanets Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have gone looking for water vapor in the atmospheres of three planets orbiting stars similar to the sun - and have come up nearly dry. The thre ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

William Cress Corporation - We Build To Last

Startup in the Land of the Rising Sun; A Japanese Solar Venture - by Bradley L. Bartz

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

NASA Long-Lived Mars Opportunity Rover Passes 25 Miles of Driving NASA's Opportunity Mars rover, which landed on the Red Planet in 2004, now holds the off-Earth roving distance record after accruing 25 miles (40 kilometers) of driving. The previous record was held ... more		Putting It All Together The New Horizons mission will provide the first in situ investigation of objects in the Kuiper belt, making it a unique voyage of discovery. And it's unlikely we'll see a similar venture into the so ... more				Timely arrival of Pharao space clock ESA has welcomed the arrival of Pharao, an important part of ESA's atomic clock experiment that will be attached to the International Space Station in 2016. Delivered by France's CNES space ag ... more
				Virgin Galactic Announces Todd Ericson As Space Pilot Virgin Galactic, the privately-funded space company owned by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi's aabar Investments PJS, has announced that Todd 'Leif' Ericson, former Operations and M ... more		A New Approach to SETI: Targeting Alien Polluters Humanity is on the threshold of being able to detect signs of alien life on other worlds. By studying exoplanet atmospheres, we can look for gases like oxygen and methane that only coexist if replen ... more

Biomarkers of the Deep Tucked away in the southwest corner of Spain is a unique geological site that has fascinated astrobiologists for decades. The Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB) in Spain's Rio Tinto area is the largest known ... more		Astronomers come up dry in search for water on exoplanets A team of astronomers has made the most precise measurements yet of water vapour in the atmospheres of Jupiter-like planets beyond our Solar System and found them to be much drier worlds than expect ... more				Hubble Finds Three Surprisingly Dry Exoplanets Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have gone looking for water vapor in the atmospheres of three planets orbiting stars similar to the sun - and have come up nearly dry. The thre ... more
Alien Atmospheres - Methane, CFCs and other signs of smart ETs Sometimes we get lucky: an exoplanet many light-years away passes in front of its star at the perfect angle. This transit allows us to read certain features of that planet's atmosphere. The resultin ... more		NASA Awards Construction Contract at Kennedy Space Center NASA has awarded a two-year contract to Hensel Phelps Construction Co. of Orlando to build a new multi-story headquarters building at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The maximum ... more		The Most Precise Measurement of an Alien World's Size Thanks to NASA's Kepler and Spitzer Space Telescopes, scientists have made the most precise measurement ever of the radius of a planet outside our solar system. The size of the exoplanet, dubbed Kep ... more		MIPT-based researcher models Titan's atmosphere A researcher from MIPT, Prof. Vladimir Krasnopolsky, who heads the Laboratory of High Resolution Infrared Spectroscopy of Planetary Atmospheres, has published the results of the comparison of his mo ... more

	NASA Explores Additional Undersea Missions With NEEMO Projects 18 and 19 NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) is gearing up for two underwater projects, 18 and 19, during the months of July and September. Aquanauts participating in the NEEMO project will ... more		Japanese leader proposes first-ever 'Robot Olympics' Nations of the world will be sending their most talented athletes to Tokyo in 2020 for the Olympic Games - but if Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gets his way, they might also be pitting robots a ... more

NASA Seeks Proposals for Commercial Mars Data Relay Satellites		'Challenges' in quest to find water on Earth-like worlds: study		Russian Cargo Craft Launches for 6-Hour Trek to ISS		Sierra Nevada Completes Major Dream Chaser NASA CCiCap Milestone		Emirates paves way for Middle East space program with mission to Mars
NASA Partners Punctuate Summer with Spacecraft Development Advances		ISS Crew Opens Cargo Ship Hatch, Preps for CubeSat Deployment		China to launch satellite for Venezuela		China to launch HD observation satellite this year		End dawns for Europe's space cargo delivery role

SpaceX releases video of rocket splashing into the ocean

Geckos at risk as Russia loses control of satellite

Russian cargo craft docks with ISS, science satellite fails

SpaceX Soft Lands Falcon 9 Rocket First Stage

China's biggest moon challenge: returning to earth

Highly charged ions

Transiting Exoplanet with Longest Known Year

New Fort Knox: A means to a solar-system-wide economy

Seeing Earth As An Exoplanet: What Signs Of Life Are Visible?

Voyager Spacecraft Might Not Have Reached Interstellar Space

UEA research shows oceans vital for possibility of alien life

NASA's Next Giant Leap

Astronauts to Test Free-Flying "Housekeeper" Robots

ATV-5: loaded and locked

Federal auditors say NASA doesn't have funds for big rocket

Are we alone? Alien pollution might reveal the answer

Curiosity's images show Earth-like soils on Mars

Lunar rock collisions behind Yutu damage

This time for the PLA: Chinese army shows off dancing robots

Wake up, robot

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