NASA HACKED! AnonSec tried to Crash $222 Million Drone into Pacific Ocean

Once again the Red Alarm had been long wailed in the Security Desk of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).



Yes! This time, a serious hacktivism had been triggered by the Hacking group named "AnonSec" who made their presence in the cyber universe by previous NASA Hacks.



The AnonSec Members had allegedly released 276 GB of sensitive data which includes 631 video feeds

New Horizons Hiccup won't Affect Pluto Mission Science

Now space scientists are planning to return New Horizons on the normal science operations, just before its historic Pluto flyby because scientists have figure out that what was the reason for its weekend glitch, says NASA.

As per the statement of Jim Green, who is Director of planetary science in NASA, “I am pleased to inform that our mission teams have quickly identified the problem which assured the health and proper operation of the spacecraft”. According to Jim, with these insights of Pluto, we are on the verge to return on the normal operations and now going for the gold.

On last Saturday, team of New Horizons traced the reasons for failure and they found that it’s hard to detect the timing flaw when it comes spacecraft command sequence which occurred during the operations preparation for the flyby of July 14. However; it is well known fact that due to the flaw spacecraft went out of communication for the duration of more than 90 minutes.

But again it comes back in protective safe mode communication when they switched control from its primary backup computer. According to Glen Nagle, spokesman of Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla, “Now again spacecraft is fully operation and we are able to download data and receive the commands”.

This spacecraft, which is of piano-size, let the scientists and engineers to know that it was good enough to receive and transmit the messages and commands. However; team members of New Horizons went through the routine troubleshooting to track down that particular glitch. Now scientists are putting all efforts to bringing the spacecraft in normal mode, but the whole process need few days meanwhile; for signals it takes four and a half hours to reach the probe when it travels with speed of light and it again takes four and a half hours to receive the response from spacecraft.

The operation triggered that same flaw will not happen again in future as currently New Horizons is 9.9 million kilometers or 6 million miles away from Pluto and in its flyby; it is traveling with the speed of 50,000 kilometers per hour or 30,000 mph.

According to NASA this outage will not affect the mission ability (cost of mission is $ 728 million) to meet its primary objectives. According to Alan Stern, who is mission's principal investigator and from Southwest Research Institute, “In terms of output it will not change A into A-plus”.

New Horizons was launched before nine years with sole objective to study the environment of Pluto and its moon. With the available instruments, spacecraft will map the surface of dwarf planet and gather the data about its composition to taste the dust in nitrogen-rich atmosphere which is in surrounding.

Apart from that the main objective craft will click the high resolution close picture of the dwarf planet to understand its surface composition. After flyby it’s expected that New Horizons will send back data in the period of 16 months or more however; currently team is drawing up plans for next flyby.

Build A Mars Base with A Box of Engineered Bugs

Travel to Alien Planet – Bug Boxes – Engineered Microbes

The next time humans intend to set foot on an alien planet, they may not have to travel alone but travel along with small lightweight `bug boxes’ that could be full of engineered microbes that would make life on these planets much more liveable.

The pioneering settlers would be needing food, fuel as well as shelter in order to survive on a distant world and tugging along bulky supplies from the Earth could be costly. Another option has been offered by Synthetic biology.

It is said that microbes weigh less and the space taken is next to nothing on a spacecraft though once the mission lands on Mars it is said that they could multiply by feeding on the materials that may be available there. The outcome of their labour could provide the essentials for human settlement.

A research has begun by NASA to realise this vision, according to Lynn Rothschild at the Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California. Rothschild who is the leader of NASA’s new Synthetic Biology Initiative, aims to build designer microbes for future crewed space missions and shared her vision at the BioDesign Forum, last week in Cambridge, UK.

Synthetic Biology – At Crossroads of Biology/Engineering 

Synthetics biology lying at the crossroads of biology and engineering has its practitioners building a biological toolkit comprising of chunks of genes, known as biobricks, each performing a certain function of making a bacterium generate natural antifreeze molecule, for instance: Biobricks could be inserted into other microbes to provide that function.

With this approach, a microbe having the capabilities of surviving on an alien planet could become one that can endure human life there. With regards to energy, several earthly microbes would have died in extra-terrestrial environment that are rich in carbon dioxide and nitrogen, the two main elements of Martian air. Anabaena, an ancient cyanobacterium tends to thrive in these conditions though metabolising both gases in order to make sugar.

Rothschild states that `as long as it has warmth and some shielding from ultraviolet light radiation, it could do well on gases in the mars atmosphere’. Anabaena utilises most of the energy produced, from carbon dioxide and nitrogen but synthetic biologist could encourage the cyanobacteria to share its supplies.

Waste – Feed the Microbes

At a synthetic biology competition last year – International Genetically Engineered Machines – iGEM, a team from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and Stanford University in California portrayed how inserting genetic machinery from E.coli made Anabaena excrete more of its energy as sugar.

 Moreover they also showed that they tend to support colonies of other bacteria as well on sugar. Such microbial colonies, in theory tend to make oil, plastic or fuel for the astronauts. The team which was led by Andre Burnier, a recent Brown graduate who had been advised by Rothschild had also come with options of supplying human settlers on Mars with mortar and bricks and had started with a bacterium known as Sporosarcina pasteurii that unusually tends to break down urea which is the main waste product in urine, excreting ammonium, making the local atmosphere alkaline enough for calcium carbonate cement to form. The waste created by the astronauts could feed the microbes and they in turn could help strengthen fine rocky material on the planet’s surface to create bricks.

Discover Asteroids for NASA with This Free App

Now everybody will be able to help NASA by identifying new asteroids for them. Asteroid tracker desktop software has been released by the space agency today at the southwest today. This software has been released in collaboration with the Planetary Resources, which is an asteroid mining company. This conjunction happened through an online competition.

The new Asteroid Tracker Software: 

Reports suggest that this software has the ability to run on any standards PC and MAC. The software will be able to capture images from a telescope and in turn run it through an algorithm and thereby determine as to why some of the celestial bodies are on par and consistent with the asteroid behaviour.

Asteroid Data Hunter App: 

The Data Hunter app enabled with the Asteroid tracker software can be easily installed on any MAC computer or personal computer. The Online competition, which resulted in the development of the new app, was ended in December. This hunter app, however, requires the astronomers to have a little experience about the astronomy to operate it efficiently. Any original images captured from this new app can be reported out to Minor Planet Centre for further confirmation. This app can be downloaded on Topcoder.

The New Algorithm: 

The space agency claims that this new algorithm has been their biggest achievement. The agency reported that compared to the previous version, this new algorithm has the capacity to spot 15% more asteroids in the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. Another advantage of the algorithm is not only limited to the identification of asteroids in the space, but it can also endeavour to match these asteroids with the NEOs (near-Earth objects). Any amateur astronomer by means of this new app will be able to examine images which have been taken from the telescopes. These amateur astronomers can also send any of these images which match with the asteroid to be considered as part of the NASA database.

Benefits of the new algorithm: 

NASA seems to have been struggling with the increasing number of NEOs swirling around the earth and this new algorithm can be quite useful for handling this complicated situation. Through this efficient algorithm, the space agency will be able to track down possible asteroids which can be threatening to our Earth. Through this new app and contribution of astronomers, the agency will be able to sort out possible candidates for future missions related to asteroids.

NASA has been very much interested in locating space rocks that can be harmful to Earth from a very long time. The space agency is also hopeful of redirecting an asteroid and further placing it in moon’s orbit. This is expected to happen in the next few decades, post which the agency is hoping to send astronauts to further study this space. They are planning to carry out this process by means of Orion spacecraft as well as the space launch system. The space agency understands that there is immense mineral wealth in a single asteroid.

Rosetta Spacecraft Raises New Questions About Comet’s Origin

Rosetta – To Orbit a Comet’s Nucleus

According to a new research released recently, Scientists using Europe’s comet-orbiting Rosetta spacecraft have discovered that its complicated ancient body is coated with simple organic molecules surrounded by a changing cloud of gases.Rosetta will be the first mission to orbit a comet’s nucleus to land and probe on its surface and will also be the first spacecraft to fly along with a comet heading towards the inner Solar System, to observe how a frozen comet gets transformed by the warmth of the Sun.

After a long journey of 10 years, Rosetta reached Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August, placing itself in an orbit for an unprecedented long term study. It released a piggyback-riding spacecraft in November which descended on the comet’s surface for various series of independent research.

Comets are presumed to be frozen leftovers from the formation of planets around 4.6 billion years back and the Rosetta mission would probably give us some understanding on the solar system’s early days, on studying one of its pristine comet remnants. Though the results from the Philae spacecraft experiments remains pending, scientists recently released 7 papers in the journal Science which provides information on Rosetta’s discoveries during its initial two months around 67P.

Discovery of Wide Variation in Gases

It was found that the comet’s body which is around 100 million time more massive than the International Space Station is covered in ripples and dunes with little water ice on its surface together with generous amount of hydrocarbons. Scientists are of the opinion that they are expecting to find more complex carbon containing molecule though have found mostly simple hydrocarbons.

This has led them to queries on how organic compounds could have been formed and spread through the solar system. The first thing that scientists need to figure out is how the comet has changed over a period of time, details of which will emerge as 67P travels towards the sun and heats up developing a coma or a visible atmosphere together with a tail.

Researchers have already discovered wide variation in the gases that are released from the nucleus, the comet’s body and the changes in the quantities of these gases seems to appear to be tied to speculation on a section of the rotating nucleus which is made of dust, rock and frozen gas, is in daylight or darkness.
Research – Understanding of Comet Formation & Evolution

According to Rosetta scientist, Myrtha Hassig of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonia, Texas, she states that seasonal effects could also be discovered over a period of time. These studies would have an ultimate impact on the scientist on their understanding of comet formation and evolution.

Another scientist, Stephen Fuselier, also from Southwest Research Institute, commented that they were taught that comets were made mostly of water ice and for this comet, the coma sometimes contains much more carbon dioxide than water vapour’.

Scientists are working in figuring out if the 67P which is shaped as a rubber duck, was actually two smaller comets which had melded together. Rosetta will carry on flying around the comet moving towards and then away from the sun, the closest approach being about 116 million miles away from the Sun on August 13.

Kepler-438b and 442b: Are These the Planets We're Looking For?

Tuesday was one of best days for astronomers as they announced that they have discovered eight new planets which are potentially habitable planets and they are further than our solar system. Two of discovered planets are mostly similar to our planet Earth. All these eight planets have been located for the first time in their far-away suns by NASA's Kepler mission. These planets are pretty much in their habitable zone or so called region which is expected to have liquid water existing on the surface of their orbiting planet. However, two of these eight planets are expected to be made out of Rock and similar to Earth.

What are these planets? 

Kepler-438b, which is 12 percent greater than Earth in diameter and made up of 70 percent of being rocky actually lies nearly 475 light-years away. On the other hand, Kepler-442b is expected to be light-years away and nearly one-third larger than Earth. This also has 60 percent chances of being rocky. These new candidates have already been added to the "Hall of Fame" of NASA Kepler for being a potential habitable-zone planet.

All about these promising candidates

Both Kepler-442b and Kepler-438b, orbit red dwarf stars. These stars are not only smaller but also cooler when compared to the sun. Kepler-438b has been expected to circle its star every 35 days but still can receive more than 40 percent light when compared to Earth. According to the parameters, this planet has 70 percent chances of being in the habitable zone of its star.

On the other hand, Kepler-442b usually completes its orbit in about 112 days and can get 2/3rd as lighter as Earth. According to the scientists, there are 97% chances of the planet being in the habitable zone. According to David Kipping, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics and second author on the paper, they are not sure if the planets are habitable based on their samples but still they fall in being the promising candidates.

According to the records, the two most Earth-like planets known were Kepler-186f is 1.1 times the size of Earth and Kepler-62f, which is 1.4 times as big as Earth.

Neighbourhood like Earth: 

At the moment, the data can only help in giving details about the size of the planet, the distance of the planet and the amount of energy it gets from its sun. The data still doesn’t give a clear picture about the actual facts about a planet. However, Kepler-438b is expected to be the closest to Earth. Astronauts have been able to find many planets not only similar to Earth but they are most likely filling up our neighbourhood.

According to NASA, Kepler mission was mainly designed to establish the statistics of Earth-like planets and finding planets similar to stars is no longer rare. Even though there are a promising future in studying these planets, but still it is difficult to find complete information about them. Scientists believe that there are millions and millions of planets in our milky way.

NASA Designs Ape-Like Robot for Disasters

NASA has developed the “RoboSimian”, which is an ape-like disasters relief robot designed to pick up and manipulate the objects in emergency response at the time of disasters. “RoboSimian” is headless robot; NASA has designed it in Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “RoboSimian” has four identical limbs to do double duty as legs and arms, seven cameras as eyes, the robot is able to run on any surface as it has wheels that makes it smooth enough.

NASA scientists has also designed a robot named as “Surrogate” with the help of left-over parts of “RoboSimian” and “Surrogate” was more traditional to ran on the tracks of complicated disaster. According to researchers “Disaster relief robots can go into dangerous environments where human rescue workers can’t go and these robots can also execute the simple tasks such as; lifting debris off survivors or the turning off a valve.

As per Supervisor, Brett Kennedy from RVMG (Robotic Vehicles and Manipulators Group) of JPL, “The stable, durable and deliberate approach suites to their technical strengths and it also provides the model for different vital element of the ecosystem, it is expected that robots will be deployed for disaster scenarios in the future”.

The tasks of RoboSimian will also include the maintenance and assembly of orbital structures, exploration of low-gravity bodies such as; comets, moons and moons; exploration of cliffs and caves on Moon and Mars. The software technique of RoboSimian was influenced by programs which can control the Mars rovers, but now JPL is focusing on the ape-like design, so that it can be used for Earth-bound applications.

If you will imagine the robots of the future, so they will work and move more like humans via using a pair of arms to work and grab the objects and standing up on two legs, but Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA was working on a different type of robot, which can help them in disaster response, which is designed to look and move like an ape. The seven cameras will act like head in this headless robot, whereas; the four identical limbs will act as pair of arms and legs.

RoboSimian is the final entry in DARPA Robotics Challenge from JPL. DARPA Robotics Challenge is 27 month long competition among the world’s top organizations and individuals, who have create robots for an emergency response such as; a nuclear disaster, climate disaster and more. In June 2015, RoboSimian along with other 18 finalists will have to find their way through multiple obstacles simulates eight common scenarios to test the strength and artificial intelligence of robots. In this each and every robot will have to drive car, use a tool and climb stairs, move across rubble and more without human controlling or support. The final winner will receive the prize of $2 million.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is well known and recognized for robotics the robots for space exploration like those robots who can work on Mars and Moon, but the DARPA competition will be an opportunity for the JPL group to come up with new robotics research where they can directly approach to other talented teams.

NASA Plans Airships, Floating City for Manned Venus Mission

NASA To Explore Venus

The team at NASA have always looked forward in expanding their horizons and have now come up with a project to explore the planet Venus. A research project has been unveiled by NASA’s Space Mission Analysis Branch, proposing to send astronauts to Venus speculating that the `lighter than air’ pods would be hovering above the clouds that would be housing the explorers.NASA has revealed that they intend sending astronauts to explore Venus with inflatable air born habitats and a movie together with an image has been published on a NASA website portraying a conceptual design for inflatable silver blimp type air balloons for the purpose of living and working which would be accommodating the two astronauts for a period of one month in the planet Venus atmosphere.

A statement from NASA’s Space Mission Analysis Branch – SMAB, states that “a recent internal NASA study of a High Altitude Venus Operational Concept – HAVOC, has led to the development of an evolutionary program for the exploration of Venus with focus on the mission architecture and vehicle concept for 30 day crewed mission to Venus’s atmosphere. A lighter than air vehicle can carry either a host of instruments and probes or a habitat and ascent vehicle for a crew of two astronauts to explore Venus for up to a month”.

Atmosphere Relatively Benign

Mission to the planet Venus, according to the American space agency would need less amount of time when compared to a similar manned mission to Mars. It is also considered that the mission would be much simpler since the atmosphere of the planet is relatively benign together with similar gravity, pressure and density to Earth. According to SMAB, the atmosphere of planet Venus seems to be an exciting destination for further scientific study as well as future human exploration and the main technical challenges for the mission would include performing the aero capture manoeuvres at Venus as well as Earth, inflating and inserting airship at Venus together with protecting the solar panels and the structure from the sulphuric acid in the atmosphere.

Need Advanced Technology/Further Refinement

NASA has also stated that there would be a need of being advanced in technology as well as further refinement of the proposed venture before its implementation. Presently, there has not been any successful manned mission to any planet though the moon seems to be the only natural satellite that man has ever set his foot on.

NASA had disclosed earlier this year, that it had managed in creating the first 3D printed object in space together with a machine on the International Space Station and is now a 3D printing tools for use on the station. Several designers have created concepts for extra-terrestrial adventures which include a London firm Priestmangoode, who had designed a capsule which would be floating tourists to the edge of space together with ZA Architects, who intend sending robots to Mars to build caves for the purpose of human habitation. Stay tuned for more interesting updating details coming up for future exploration on the planet Venus.

Launch of New Orion Spaceship Has NASA Flying High

Looking back at the space shuttle days, the recent impending debut of Orion spacecraft has left NASA on a high note. According to the sources, shuttle veterans are expected to be leading the charge in two-orbit, 4½-hour test flight, which is meant to shake out the capsule, before the astronauts can climb aboard. The destination at the moment has been said to be Mars. As per the lead flight director stationed at Mission Control in Houston, Mike Sarafin, they never felt this kind of feeling since the closure of the shuttle program. This is a very proud moment for them, as they will be launching an American spacecraft from the United States of America’s soil, which is meant for starting something new and explore some of the dark secrets of the space.

The launch of new Orion spacecraft: 

The spacecraft is expected to fly farther than any human-rated spacecraft (this is since the Apollo moon program) and it will aim at a distance of 3,600 miles, which is 14 times higher than the International Space Station and it is expected that altitude will provide a momentum for a 20,000-mph and 4,000-degree entry over the Pacific. The most vital part of the test flight is called the "trial by fire” by NASA, which is the 11 short minutes to splashdown. The heat shield at Orion's base is the largest of its kind ever built, which is at 16.5 feet across.

If sources have to be believed, nearly 650 journalists and around 26,000 guests are expected at the Kennedy for the sunrise launch. The space center press site was packed with many out of station reporters who have not been since the last shuttle flight in 2011. The capsule's inaugural run was put on par with that of the formative steps of Apollo and the space shuttles by the NASA's Orion program manager, Mark Geyer. He stated that they are starting a new mission, which is at the region on the moon and looking forward to something beyond than that. As per Jeff Angermeier, “Ground support mission manager from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, everybody can feel the buzz as this is a very exciting time for them”.

According to Charles Bolden Jr, Administrator of NASA, “In past 40 years, it will be the first time when America is going to launch a spacecraft meant to carry humans beyond low-Earth orbit. That’s what makes it a big deal”. Before 2012, Orion is not planning to carry any astronauts. NASA wants to test some of the most critical parts of the capsule as it will be travelling through the high-radiation Van Allen belts surrounding Earth and engineers are looking forwards to check on the effect on the on-board computers.

As if now the spacecraft will be hoisted by Delta IV rocket but for the next flight in 2018, it will use mega-rocket which is still under development. The spacecraft without any humans has taken some of the stress off the NASA scientists, as they are still trying to overcome the October's explosion moments of the commercial rocket, which was carrying supplies for the International Space Station.

NASA Explores Inflatable Spacecraft Technology

At NASA’s Langley Research Centre located in Hampton, engineers have been devising a way to land astronauts on Mars which according to them seems that a simple thing like a child’s toy design would help to solve the problem. The progress is on, in the development of an inflatable heat shield which looks like a super-sized version of a stacking of doughnuts which an infant normally plays with.

The engineers are of the belief that a lightweight, inflatable heat shield could help to slow the craft to enter a Martian atmosphere which is much thinner to the Earth’s atmosphere. Landing safely in a large spacecraft on the Red planet is one of the many challenges faced as they are keen on sending humans, deep into space later this century.

This designed inflatable heat shield will enable the spacecraft to reach high altitude southern plains of Mars as well as other areas which otherwise would not be accessible under the prevailing technology. According to the experts, the rockets cannot be used to land a large spacecraft on Mars as done on the moon. Moreover, parachutes too would be of no use for a large spacecraft to send humans to the planet Mars.

Rings Filled with Nitrogen/Covered with Thermal Blanket

The inflatable rings would be the most appropriate option which would be filled with nitrogen and then covered with thermal blanket and once deployed to land, the rings could sit atop the spacecraft which resembles to some extent like a giant mushroom.

According to the senior engineer at Langley for advanced entry, descent and landing systems, Neil Cheatwood, he states that they are trying not to use propulsion if not required and will make use of that atmosphere as much as possible since it would mean that they will not have to carry the fuel with them. NASA’s leaders accept that getting humans to and from Mars safely, as early as 2030 would be very challenging. The scientists’ agency also agree that they should design new in-space propulsion systems with advanced spacesuits, long term living habitats abroad spacecraft as well as communication systems for deep space.

Work in Progress and Ready for Operational Use - By2016

This experiments needs to be tested on how second generation inflatable spacecraft technology would perform on re-entry in the Earth’s atmosphere. The testing is important since NASA officials are of the belief that an inflatable heat shield could be helpful for the astronauts to land on Mars and return with larger loads of supplies from the International Space Station and the experiment is scheduled on the next Antares rocket in 2016.

This new technology would be needed to land the astronauts on Mars since the kind of spacecraft which land humans would be larger than that which had landed on the planet earlier. The present heat shield technology is too much on the larger side with regards to weight which means that it cannot land anything larger than the rover which had been sent previously. Since the Viking program in the 1970s, NASA had relied on parachute based deceleration on Mars.

Work on the inflatable technology by the engineers at Langley has been going on for about a decade and is probably close to being ready for operational use.

NASA Prepares Launch Of Four Satellites That Will Finally Explore Out The Origins Of Earth’s Mysterious Magnetic Field

A scientist might be able to answer any question pertaining to the magnetic fields, but actually how much information do we have about the Earth’s magnetic field. If we tend to change our focus from the Earth’s magnetic field, how much information do we have about other magnetic fields like subatomic or terrestrial.

In March 2015, NASA is expected to be launching their Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS). The scientists have been putting in effort in this mission from past 10 years, mainly to get answers to some of the unbelievable questions pertaining to the Earth’s magnetic field.

The mission consists of 4 satellites and these satellites are expected to get arranged in a Pyramid form. This pyramid form has been opted to create a first detailed three-dimensional map of a process called as magnetic reconnection. The magnetic reconnection is the phenomenon which is experienced directly as solar flares, geomagnetic storms, and even australis and aurora borealis.

Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission: 

This mission is expected to be the extended version of the European Space Agency’s successful Cluster II Mission. In March 2015, NASA is planning to launch the MMS vehicles together as a stack in an Atlas V 421 rocket, rather than launching them in pairs.

The picture of the satellites released by NASA shows that these vehicles push the size limit for the cross section of a craft which can be easily carried out in a rocket in an assembled form. On the similar concept, NASA has also been working on a separate project, called the ATHLETE robot, which resembles the outlook of MMS and also has the ability to pile multiple vehicles in the core of the rocket.

How it will work? 

Once these reach their desired destination, which is a highly elliptical orbit around Earth, these vehicles will separate from each other and form a pyramid keeping one craft at each vertex of the tetrahedron. Later on they will release the feelers. Scentists will be using the smaller probe separations (few kilometers) for exploring the actual reconnection processes and Large distances between each craft (Ranging up to 250 miles/400 kilometers) for the identification of the reconnection events.

The day-side magnetopause and the magnetotai will be the places where the magnetic connection will be showcased and this will done through the optimization of the highly elliptical orbit of the formation around the Earth. The magnetopause is the place where the pressure from the planet’s magnetic field and the solar wind and are equal, on the other hand, the magnetotail spreads to great distances from the originating planet due to the magnetosphere (pressure from the solar wind).

The Magnetic reconnection happens in the thin layers where there is a high concentration of magnetic and mechanical energy. In order to create a fusion, it is important to understand the magnetic reconnection. This will help in understanding the magnetic confinement of the materials which scientists are looking towards fusing.

This mission has be launched to understand the magnetic field of the earth and how the core temperature of the earth affects the same.

Will NASA Pull Off a Piece of an Asteroid

NASA’s Plan – Asteroid Redirect Mission

NASA has plans on Asteroid Redirect Mission, to snatch an asteroid out of space and send it in lunar orbit for study and recently the agency announced when its first phase of the operation would begin, the spacecraft would be launched in 2019.

NASA has indicated that it needs more information before plunging into the signature space mission. Examining an asteroid from space which does not change over a period of time could provide the scientist with some understanding about the earliest stages of the universe and if all goes well, NASA would pick out an asteroid in 2018 and send up the spacecraft in 2019, either by attaching it to a small asteroid or use it to chip off a piece of a large asteroid. Thereafter it would send both the asteroid- grabbing machine and asteroid to travel around the moon.

A crew of astronauts would be following the rock somewhere in 2020 for hooking the spacecraft and mining the 32 meter asteroid with regards to information on cosmic past. The final design for the craft is yet to be shaped with NASA accepting ideas and has released some sketches on how it would look.

Progress on the Orion Spacecraft

In the meanwhile NASA is also progressing on the Orion spacecraft, with the crew that will go up with it and has another asteroid program in the pipeline, a plan to launch a robot into space in 2016 to have it latched onto an asteroid and return back with samples by itself in 2023.

NASA Associate Administrator, Robert Lightfoot informed reporters during a teleconference recently on, whether taking that option is worth the extra expense and mission risk involved.Lightfoot had presided over the meeting to decide between the boulder grabbing mission known as Option `B’ and an Option `A’ plan, which involved intercepting a small near Earth asteroid and then bring it back intact.

At the end of the meeting, Lightfoot has commented that it would take another two or three weeks to obtain the data that was needed to form the decision and a mission concept review is scheduled for next February. Lightfoot had informed that Option B would be testing more of the technologies which would be used at the time of the future missions to Mars.

Mission Complex/Costlier

The mission would be more complex and around $100 million costlier and the target price tag is roughly $1.25 billion which excludes the launchcosts. Besides this, the figure also excludes the cost of sending astronauts to rendezvous with the space rock in mid-2020. The aim is to execute a manned mission to the captured asteroid by 2025 and in doing so, would manage an exploration goal that had been laid for NASA by President Barack Obama in 2010.

The retrieval mission of the asteroid would also help to develop the technology as well as its techniques that may be essential for a manned Mars trip which is planned according to the agency officials by mid-2030.To fund 18 six month studies `to mature system concepts and key technologies as well as assess the feasibility of potential commercial partnerships in order to support the agency’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, NASA has made a commitment of $4.9 million.

NASA Wants To Launch Tiny Moon Satellites on Its Next-Generation Rocket

NASA is keen on launching tiny moon satellites on its Next Generation Rocket and December 4th unscrewed the launch of the Orion spacecraft. The vehicle was proposed to bring the astronauts in the solar system in the next decade and NASA is thinking ahead to the next space test somewhere in 2017 or 2018.

The Cube Quest Competition which was sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission directorate Centennial Challenge Program has been offering around $5million to those who meet the challenge objective of designing, building as well as delivering flight qualified small satellite which would be capable of advanced operations anywhere near and beyond the moon.

The team members of Cube Quest would have the opportunities of competing for a secondary payload spot on the first mission of NASA’s Orion spacecraft that would be launched atop the agency’s Space Launch System – SLS rocket.

There are three stages to the competition namely: Ground Tournaments, Deep Space Derby and Lunar Derby wherein all the teams could compete in any one of the Ground Tournaments. The team which rates high on mission safety as well as probability of success would be receiving incremental awards. The Ground Tournaments would be held every four to six months providing opportunities to earn a spot on the first integrated flight of SLS and Orion.

Innovative Solution to Deep Space Communication

Focus of Deep Space Derby would be on finding innovative solution to deep space communication with the use of small spacecraft while the Lunar Derby would be focusing mainly on propulsion for small spacecraft and near Earth communications.

With the combinations of these challenges, it is expected in making a contribution to the opening of deep space exploration to non-government spacecraft for the first time. Small spacecraft capabilities in advancements may not only provide benefits to the future missions but also make it possible for new mission scenarios and the Cube Quest Challenge seems to establish priority for all subsystems in need of performing deep space exploration with the use of small spacecraft.

If all goes well, riding atop of the new Space Launch System rocket, it will be a suite of CubeSats which will explore the Moon as Orion journeys out to our largest nearest celestial planet.CubeStats, tiny satellites are so small that they are within the reach of universities as well as other similar institutions which may desire to perform science in space without the help of cost on operating a huge mission.

NASA – CubeStats Challenge

The concept has been of great success resulting in some companies using it as a base for their entire business model like the Planet Labs which is a company that is performing Earth observation with the small machines.

The competition would be divided in several sections inclusive of ground tournament in order to see if the CubeSats could fly on the SLS, s lunar derby ensuring that they could communicate at a distance of about 10 times the Earth moon distance with a deep space derby to put the CubeStats in stable lunar orbit and function well there.

NASA states that `the Cube Quest Challenge seeks to develop and test subsystems necessary to perform deep space exploration using small spacecraft and advancements in small spacecraft capabilities will provide benefits to future mission and also enable entirely new mission scenarios including future investigations of near-Earth asteroids’.

NASA Releases Crazy Video Shot From a Camera, Inside a Ball of Water in the Space

The International Space Station is expected to keep on offering what we know the best entry we can have to what life off-Earth is overall like, and this will keep on happening as long as we consider Interstellar as part of science fiction.

Chris Hadfield's famous Bowie rendition has clearly demonstrated as to how the crews of international astronauts who have lived in the space station has always tried their best to convey the overall experience of living in space to the people of Earth and that too making sure that they don’t need rocket power to get the feel of the experience. A person doesn’t need to literally leave their bond with the gravity to understand the life of the astronauts in space.

So what is the clip all about?

NASA astronaut Don Pettit shot footage of the International space station in the year 2012 using a 3D camera.
The footage can be accessed at This video gives the viewers a floating tour of the of the confined interiors of the International Space Station but if see the footage closely one of the most exciting part to see is when Don Pettit has directed the camera to capture the views of the Russian Soyuz capsule docked just above the International Space Station.

But in the recent times, what can be considered as one of the most insane video clips that has been posted online is the clip posted from the astronauts' adventures in the microgravity 3D cinematography.
This video highlights the behavior of water aboard the International Space Station. The video shows how the team was able to create a softball-size sphere of water due to the surface tension in space. The team took the advantage of this tension which basically makes the water form a ball rather than bead up, as it is bound to do on a non-permeable surface on Earth.

After forming the ball, the team has inserted as the GoPro camera inside and taken the outside view from inside the ball. Although the released clip requires a person to wear red-blue stereoscopic 3D vision glasses, but a 2D version is easily available in YouTube as part of pair of clips released by NASA.
Who is part of the clip?
The video clearly highlights the fun astronauts at NASA had while shooting, and adds an extra dimension in the lives of the people living in the space. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Steve Swanson and Alexander Gerst (European Space Agency astronaut) feature in this video clip.

NASA Releases Over 60 Space Audio Recordings on Soundcloud

After many decennaries, NASA has been able to put up a SoundCloud account, which will allow them to stream out the audio clips they have collected and which includes celestial sounds like the ones from the launching of the rockets, the dialogue of the astronaut with that of alien lightning and also the interstellar plasma.

Now, NASA has released nearly 60 space recording for people to hear anywhere online. These released recordings contain sounds that came from the launching of the shuttle, Saturn’s rings, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and some of the most famous quotes from the astronauts.

So what’s special about these recordings?

At the moment, there are 63 recordings in offering, but the emphasis was on the fact they uploaded the very first audio consisting on Neil Armstrong’s voice. If the reports from 'mother nature network' have to be believed, the first video which was posted by NASA contained the most famous word “A Giant Leap”, said by Neil Armstrong when he first put his foot on the surface of the moon and touched it.

Earth-song:

The Chorus, which is also known as “Earth-song” is known to be one of the most popular NASA feeds. Earth-song is essentially the noise which is made by the electromagnetic phenomenon, which is actually caused by the plasma waves in the radiation belts of Earth.

These plasma waves become visible at least 12,874 km (8,000 miles) on top of the surface. These Earth-song recordings were recorded by NASA in 2012 with the help of the EMFISIS probe.

Saturn Radio:

Saturn Radio is one of the other recordings uploaded by NASA. Saturn is known to be the hub of dramatic sounds and aurora which are similar to that of the southern light and the northern sounds which roams around the Earth’s pole, and this happens when the upper atmosphere is hit by the solar wind.

The Northern and the Southern lights look similar to that of the strong radio emissions from the planet and this was detected the very first time in 2002 by the Cassini spacecraft.

The Sounds of Interstellar:

The Sounds of Interstellar is another audio clip which basically represents the data that was collected outside the Heliosphere by NASA's Voyager 1in 2012 and 2013.

Lift Off:

These sounds were from the very first manned-mission, Apollo 11. This mission conducted on the moon was called as Lift off. These clips consist of the sounds of lift off as well as the appreciation in the space center.

On the similar lines, even ISRO (India's space research Organization) reached out to millions of the people from the social media by giving out the step by step information about all their historic Mars Orbit Insertion which were successful in the month of September.

The ISRO got lots of appreciation for their initiative from the users of the social media. Constant tweets between NASA and ISRO became the trending news in the media and very much appreciated.

NASA Is Preparing Mars Spacecraft For A Close Clash With The Comet

Comet Siding Spring which was discovered on January 2012, is expected to fly pass just 87,000 miles away which is 140,000 km wawy from Mars. This distance is merely half the distance between the Moon and Earth. This is expected to happen on the 13th of October. According to the NASA scientists, this is the first time any comet has passed nearly 10 times close to Earth. On Thursday, NASA announced in a conference, that they have already prepared themselves for the extremely rare and close encounter by the passing comet. This is will be done from the outer boundary of the solar system.

According to Padma Yanamandra-Fisher, Senior research scientist from Space Science Institute in Rancho Cucamonga, California, it is really hard to plan any mission for Oort Cloud comets, as they are not so sure about the behavior of that particular comet as well as the origin point of the comet. This comet is a very rare and special visitor from the far-away Oort Cloud.

The Oort cloud is a collection of the frozen remnants which were formed during the formation of the solar system. Comet Siding Spring which is supposed to be a first-time visitor in the inner part of the solar system was gravitationally thrown out of the solar system nearly a million years ago by a passing star. The comet is believed to be maintaining a distance from the Sun, similar to that of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and even Neptune.

This first time movement of the comet has been named as water-ice line. During the initial stages, NASA was very much concerned with the fact that the dusty tail of the comet might interfere and become a threat to the spacecrafts orbiting around in the solar system as it passes by Mars.

During the latest assessments, the threat has been confirmed as much as 90% and based on these assessments, NASA has already made changes to the orbits of the satellites to ensure that they are behind the planet when the comet passes by.

According to Rich Zurek, a NASA Mars scientist and also working with Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, during this event, there are high chances that the remnant cloud might be very close to Mars and there are other chances of the comet completely missing Mars and will not leave any kind of particles. NASA’s current curiosity and the perfect opportunity is being protected by the fact that the atmosphere on Mars is very thin compared to Earth. NASA is very curious about this comet as it might lead to triggering of meteor showers.

Apart from India and the European Space Agency spacecraft orbiting the planet, NASA has two rovers apart from their three operational orbiters which are currently orbiting Mars. All of this probe is part of the study, which is based on a grand science campaign focusing on the comet during its contact time. NASA scientists are curious to learn about the impacts of the planet’s gravitational force on the comet and how the comet will be impacting the Mars atmosphere.

NASA aiming for establishment of traffic rules for Low-Flying and Commercial Drones

NASA is not among the latest companies who got interested in the air traffic control management system. According to the recent files reports, NASA is in search for partners to collaborate and establish a traffic management system for low-flying drones. In the fact sheet containing the proposal on this issue NASA explained that at the moment there are no infrastructure established that can not only enable but also safely manage the extensive usage of low-altitude airspace. Drones and the Small craft which are basically remotely guided and are used by hobbyists along with drones have no knowledge of each other. They might not be able to avoid each other and other things like high winds and power lines etc.

NASA is aiming towards building a system, which will help them in tracking as well as managing the increasing numbers of aircrafts in the air. Even though NASA has been working on a project on the similar lines for more than years, the proposed “Unmanned aerial system Traffic Management” (UTM) is still in its infancy. Currently NASA is planning to work people who have expertise and have contributed towards this idea, which includes aircraft makers, sensors and software developers and aviation experts among others.

Commercial drones

Agency is looking for partners to develop a project for safe commercial usage of drones in United States of America. This multi-year program is an idea towards developing air traffic management for commercial drones. This program is important as the commercial drones used in banned in USA by the Federal Aviation Administration which includes devices like Octocopters, Quadcopters and other remote-controlled aircraft among others.

This means a path has been cleared for people who now legally fly consumer can grade UAS (unmanned aerial system) from various companies ranging from 3D robotics, DJI and Parrot among others. Added to this factor, now Amazon has announced that they will use this device to deliver package.

Airware is among the first partners who are helping the agency in this multi year program. The aim of this device is to ensure a safe management apart from the low altitude use of devices from ground to 500 feet. According to Jesse Kallman, who is the head of Airware's business development and regulatory affairs, the current problem that everyone is facing is that there is no universal system for the ensuring the safety of people on ground apart from those in airplanes and helicopters, as sometimes there are communication issues with drone pilots due to their devices.

Apart from this NASA aims to safe delivery of the pilot at ground. Even though this program it is not expected to launch it for upcoming years, but elements of this work is expected to come out in the market anytime in between.

Get Ready For A Test Flight With NASA To Mars

NASA made easy to travel to MARS: 

NASA moved one more step forward in the history of space by launching the First spacecraft named Rosetta, which will be rotating around a comet. It will be landed on its nucleus and will be sending data back to the earth. A new invention has shocked the entire world due to its effective use. The spacecraft Rosetta was launched in the year 2004, but was reactivated in 2014 after a record of 957days of staying in the state of hibernation.

The main focus 7 duty of Rosetta was to reach the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the month of August and to study the celestial object and to prepare for mooring on the nucleus mostly by November.

Claudia Alexander, who is a Rosetta's U.S. project scientist at NASA's (JPL) in Pasadena, California was very excited and feels proud to see some zero’s and ones coming down, he rejoices and is waiting to extract what actually this all want to inform. Research and study are the all-time focused works for the Scientist, which will help them to make human travel Mars easily.

The current news reflects that Rosetta is approaching the main asteroid belts positioned between Mars and Jupiter. The exact location of the spacecraft is almost 30000 miles away from the Comet, but positively by august the instrument will be able to begin its work and map its surface.

The total number of instruments launched in the space can be calculated as three they are namely, MIRO, Alice (Ultraviolet spectrometer), and IES. These three forms the part of the Suite of 11-science instrument abroad the Rosetta orbit. The main activity of each can be briefly classified as:

MIRO: The MIRO was lunched and positioned to scrutiny the effect of dust and gas, which leaves the nucleus in order to form the comet and its tail giving it a striking look. It gives details of the formation of comet and it leaves the purlieu of the sun.

Alice: It acts as the calculator which measure the proportion at which the comet produces different elements such as water, carbon-di-oxide, carbon mono-oxide as it approaches the SUN. It also helps in analysis of the gas in the comet’s coma.

IES: The main objective of IES is to work upon the plasma environment of the comet, predominantly the coma. They work upon the charged particles present in the outer atmosphere of the sun or present in the solar winds as they meet up with the gas flowing out from the comet. The accumulative effort of the entire three segments will help the scientist analyses the possibility to set Human on Mars.

In December this year, the engineers at NASA will start the final assembly of ORION spacecraft that would take men to Mars.The Orion’s flight test in December will provide with all the necessary data, which in order will help to analyze and arrange the entire perquisite for sending Humans to mars safely. In the future, Orion will be in position to launch the NASA’s new heavy lift Rocket, SLS (space launch system)

The SLS (Space launch System) will be world’s first heavy lift rocket which will be in position to carry Human Beings in space.