This may win for my favorite “how big is the solar system?” demonstration.
Category: Space
Good morning, Pluto
This morning, NASA released this image of Pluto, as part of its on-going New Horizons mission.
Currently, the piano-sized spacecraft is in radio silence, collecting data as it flies by Pluto and its moons. Tomorrow marks the start of a 16-month data download about the dwarf planetary system as the space craft flies into the Kuiper belt. For today, however, this image is an amazing gift from the countless scientists and engineers who have been working for over a decade on this project.
The Apollo Edition Mustang ⇢
For nearly a decade, Ford has auctioned off custom cars in support of the Experimental Aircraft Association youth educational program. This year’s caught my eye:
“The Ford Apollo Edition Mustang salutes man’s greatest technological achievement, with the ingenuity, precision, and power that defined the spirit of American innovation,” said Edsel B. Ford II, a member of the Ford Board of Directors. “Inspired by the Apollo program, Ford Motor Company committed itself to including exhilarating power, cutting-edge technology, and extraordinary craftsmanship in this automobile, which will support the next generation of pilots in EAA’s aviation education programs for young people.”
We
While my week at NASA didn’t end as the agency may have planned, there’s no way around it: it was an incredible week.
Bonus: Check out my collection of photos from the trip over on Flickr.
If the first day was about why we do things in space, then the rest of the week was all about the how.
For example, we saw how thermal protection tiles — the tiles that allow vehicles to reenter the atmosphere without burning up — are made:
SpaceX CRS-7 breaks up post-launch
This morning, I joined the press and other NASASocial members to view the launch of SpaceX’s CRS–7 mission. The launch itself was stunning. We were about 4 miles away, right across the water from the pad.
My video (Forgive the shaky cam; I shot this with one hand with my iPhone as I was taking still photos from a tripod.) doesn’t do the experience of the thing justice.
A couple of minutes away from launch, a silent anticipation fell across the crowd. The voice marched on, marking off the seconds, and then it started.
The sky calls to us
Outside of the building where the space shuttle Atlantis is on display at Kennedy Space Center, this quote greets visitors:
I’m spending the rest of the week in Florida as part of the NASA Social program, covering Sunday’s SpaceX CRS–7 launch.
I applied a few weeks ago, while in San Francisco at WWDC, and was excited to learn I had been accepted. I drove down yesterday, and spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center, where I saw Atlantis and lots of other bits of NASA history. The actual program kicks off in the morning.
Mission Control, Houston, Celebrates 50th Anniversary ⇢
I love the shots of the old workstations and guys smoking.
PowerPCs in space ⇢
Turns out, the PowerPC G3 chips that powered Macs for years are still powering hardware, albeit in space:
The RAD750 is a radiation-hardened single board computer manufactured by BAE Systems Electronics, Intelligence & Support. The successor of the RAD6000, the RAD750 is for use in high radiation environments experienced on board satellites and spacecraft. The RAD750 was released in 2001, with the first units launched into space in 2005.
As Thomas Brand points out, the RAD750 can be found in all sorts of cool missions include the Deep Impact comet chaser, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Kepler space telescope and Mars Curiosity rover.
NASA tweet of the day
The most complicated machine man has ever built is but a Hot Wheels toy.
STS-125 in solar transit as seen from Earth #OTD in 2009 pic.twitter.com/Epq2YWv7Iz
— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) May 12, 2015
NASA’s crawlers turn 50 ⇢
Linda Herridge:
NASA’s crawler-transporters, two of the largest vehicles ever built, have carried NASA rockets and spacecraft to the launch pad for the last 50 years. They will continue their legacy as the “workhorses” of the nation’s space program as part of the agency’s journey to Mars.
The crawlers are being modified to carry NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) with the Orion spacecraft atop it and potential commercial vehicles to their pads to begin space exploration missions. Originally constructed in 1965 to support the agency’s Apollo Program, they also supported the Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and Space Shuttle Program, helping NASA push the boundaries of human space exploration farther into the solar system.
That Pale Blue Dot
On Saturday, one of the most iconic images of all time turned 25 years old.
On February 14, 1990, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft took a photo of the solar system, capturing Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus and Earth — which showed up as the “pale blue dot” in the brown band on the right side of the photo.
The photo — taken 3,720 million miles away from Earth — puts us in our place in a way that is beautiful and haunting. All of our knowledge, all of our passion, all of our shit, all of our everything is just a few pixels across.
NASA to hack Opportunity to fix memory issue ⇢
The BBC:
Mars rover Opportunity, which has been exploring the Red Planet for more than 10 years, is suffering from memory problems, Nasa has said.
The six-wheeled vehicle - not to be confused with Curiosity, which launched in 2011 - keeps resetting unexpectedly.
The Opportunity team thinks an age-related fault affecting the flash memory used by the robot is to blame.
It believes it has found a way to hack the rover’s software to disregard the faulty part.