International NASA Space Station Mission Shuttle Earth Science News Technology Mars System: November 2006

International Space Station News

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Atom optics moves into space

Physicists are drawing up plans for a new space mission that might carry out a sort of experiments in fundamental physics. The mission that will also involve placing an atom interferometer aboard a spacecraft aims to view the effects of quantum gravity for the first time.

Other instruments would look for violations of the equivalence principle – one of the foundations of universal relativity – also deviations in Newtonian gravity, which will reveal the existence of higher dimensions. They can even search for hypothetical “dark matter” particles called axions

Monday, November 27, 2006

1st alumna walks in the space

NASA astronaut Heidemarie M. Stefanyshyn-Piper became the first MIT alumna to walk in the space during this successful STS-115 space shuttle mission, Sept. 9 through Sept. 21.

Stefanyshyn-Piper spent more than 13 hours on two the extravehicular activities (EVAs) outside of space shuttle Atlantis as it was docked with the International Space Station. She was actually responsible for assembling a major truss segment that includes a new set of photovoltaic solar arrays, which provide power to the space station.

Stefanyshyn-Piper is the fifth woman astronaut to walk in space in support of the space station assembly effort.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Mars Global Surveyor may get lost in space: NASA

After weeks of unsuccessful attempts at the communication, NASA scientists finally announced on Tuesday that the Mars Global Surveyor might get lost in space.

Reuters reports the spacecraft then went silent on Nov. 2 after it signaled about this problem with a sticky solar panel. Scans have since displayed no evidence of it since.

A search party started with the Deep Space Network. It received a weak carrier signal from the search during the first two or three days, but then it went silent.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

First woman in space

Iranian-born American entrepreneur ANOUSHEH ANSARI speak to us how she became the world's first female space tourist and also ended up spending a week in the International Space Station.

"EARTH is splendidly beautiful from space. Looking out through the International Space Station (ISS), I saw it with no borders and no evidence of the strife between peoples who roils the world these days. The only boundaries were those among water and land. The only change was just from day to night and back again. I saw 32 dawn and sunsets each day. I never tired of watching light and in the dark trade places around the globe".

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Live From Space: HDTV

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station now might want to take a few extra pains with their fresh grooming Wednesday morning: The crew is now scheduled to take part in the first high-definition television broadcast from space.

"You could see the pores on their skin," said project manager Kevin Hanes with NASA's Johnson Space Center at Houston. "It's so good; you roughly don't wish to look at people."

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Space shuttle moved to pad as NASA aims for earlier launch

Cape Canaveral (US), Nov 12: Space shuttle Discovery has been moved to the launch pad to await a launch that could be as early as December 7 - an effort to avoid potential New Year’s Eve computer glitches.

The worry is that shuttle computers are not designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the New Year while in flight. NASA has never had a shuttle in space December 31 or January 1.

Friday, November 10, 2006

India plans to blast astronaut into space

India's space agency had recently approved plans for its first manned mission into space that is if successful, it would make India only the fourth nation to open an astronaut into orbit aboard its own rocket.

The state-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said it aspires to put an astronaut outside the Earth's atmosphere by 2014.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

To The Dawn Of Space

The Dawn spacecraft is in space! Well, not quite, but it is getting a taste of the space environment, courtesy of the team preparing it for its mission. Although the individual components of the spacecraft have already been tested, the point of the testing in Orbital Sciences Corporation's Environmental Test Facility is to verify that the fully assembled spacecraft will survive the rigors of launch and be able to fulfill its ambitious mission of exploration in deep space.

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