ESA’s Swarm trio monitoring our planet’s magnetic shield
An artist view of the separation of the Swarm trio of orbiting satellites is pictured above. Credit: ESA/P. Carril ESA’s three-satellite Swarm constellation was lofted into a near-polar orbit by a Russian Rockot launcher in late November, 2013. For four years, it will monitor Earth’s magnetic field, from the depth of our planet’s core to …
Students ace ‘Hole-In-One’ contest at JPL
Students from 19 high school teams across Southern California, as well as NASA professionals, took part in a “Hole-in-One” contest in the Invention Challenge last month at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. The objective of the annual challenge was to create a device that could propel or move a golf ball into a …
Stephen Colbert presents honor from NASA to Voyager scientist
As if NASA’s Voyager mission didn’t have enough firsts in its 36-year journey, what with sending the first spacecraft to Uranus, Neptune and, most recently, interstellar space! Now, it has another first back here on Earth: on the December 3, 2013 episode of the Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert floated across the stage in a …
NASA Mars spacecraft reveals a more dynamic Red Planet
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed to scientists slender dark markings — possibly due to salty water – that advance seasonally down slopes surprisingly close to the Martian equator. “The equatorial surface region of Mars has been regarded as dry, free of liquid or frozen water, but we may need to rethink that,” said Alfred …
Watching Earth’s winds, on a shoestring
Built with spare parts and without a moment to spare, the International Space Station (ISS)-RapidScat isn’t your average NASA Earth science mission. Short for Rapid Scatterometer, ISS-RapidScat will monitor ocean winds from the vantage point of the space station. It will join a handful of other satellite scatterometer missions that make essential measurements used to …
Virgin Galactic’s SS2 soars during supersonic test flight
Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline, successfully completed on January 11 the third rocket-powered supersonic flight of its passenger carrying reusable space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2). In command on the flight deck of SS2 for the first time under rocket power was Virgin Galactic’s Chief Pilot Dave Mackay. Mackay, along with Scaled Composites’ (Scaled) Test …