Following their successful “Let It Snow” photo contest, our colleagues at the soon-to-launch Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission are looking for your best photos and videos of rain, sleet, hail, snow and any other precipitation. They describe their “Unique Perspectives” contest this way: There are many ways to view precipitation…We’d like to see weather from […]
We're one small but important step closer to Mars this morning after the launch team placed MAVEN on the top of the Atlas V rocket that will send the probe to the Red Planet. While most of the Cape Canaveral region was sleeping, a crew drove the MAVEN spacecraft from its processing hangar at Kennedy …
37 Soyuz Launch, Docking and Hatch Opening: Soyuz Commander Tyurin, Mastracchio, and Wakata launched onboard Soyuz 37S last night at 10:14pm CST. Following a successful four-orbit rendezvous, they docked to the Mini-Research Module (MRM)-1 port at 4:27am CST this morning. Once leak checks between the MRM1 and 37S were performed, the hatches were opened at …
Hindus are celebrating Diwali this week. That means cities and towns around the world—but particularly in South Asia—are ablaze with lamps, candles, and firecrackers. It’s also become a tradition (of sorts) to share a colorful image via social media that was supposedly taken by a satellite during Diwali. If that image turns up on your […]
Body Measures: Flight Engineer (FE)-3 Hopkins, with operator assistance from FE-6 Nyberg, set up cameras and cabin video, performed body marker instrumentation, and collected calibration and body pose photos and circumference measurements. It is anticipated that body measurements will change due to microgravity and fluid shifts. The goal of this study is to gather preliminary …
After showing they could build rockets strong enough to reach space, it didn't take long for rocket scientists in America and Russia to begin sending satellites toward Mars. The first launch took place Oct. 10, 1960, from the Soviet Union almost three years to the day since the nation launched the first satellite, Sputnik. This …
Biological Rhythms 48 Hour Experiment: As part of the continuing JAXA Biological Rhythms 48 hour experiment, Flight Engineer (FE)-5 Parmitano terminated the first 24-hour measurement, exchanged the Multi Media Card and battery, and then started the latter 24 hour measurement. Data for this portion of the experiment is being taken from the Digital Walk Holter …
Here's what MAVEN looked like just before engineers and technicians fit the two-piece payload fairing around it. The spacecraft's solar arrays and instruments have been folded up. The fairing with MAVEN inside will be bolted to the top of an Atlas V rocket for launch at 1:28 p.m. EST on Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral …
Each of MAVEN's solar array "wings" has a magnetometer on its tip to take readings of Martian magnetic field as the spacecraft orbits the Red Planet. The data is seen as crucial to evaluate the interaction between the solar wind from the sun and the thin atmosphere of Mars.
