JPL Releases High Definition Imagery of Curiosity Touching Down on Mars

This is a full-resolution version of the NASA Curiosity rover descent to Mars, taken by the MARDI descent imager. As of August 20, all but a dozen 1600x1200 frames have been uploaded from the rover, and those missing were interpolated using thumbnail data. To arrive at the result, a heavy noise reduction, color balance, and sharpening for best visibility were done.

NASA Releases Curiosity Descent Video

NASA has released video shot from Curiosity as it descended through the Martian atmosphere right up until the moment of landing on Mars.



It's a low-resolution video, and it is expected to be followed up with a high resolution video shortly.

Curiosity Lands Safely On Mars After 7 Minutes of Terror

Streaming video by Ustream

The NASA Mars mission Curiosity has landed safely on Mars.

This is perhaps the photo of the mission - it shows the Curiosity lander as it cuts through the Martian atmosphere with its huge parachute unfurled. It was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter from about 300 miles away.

Curiosity is a mobile platform enabling exploration over a wide area. The mission is expected to last more than a year.

Curiosity is the biggest and most capable robotic laboratory ever sent to another celestial body: Its 10 scientific instruments are designed to study the chemistry of Mars' rocks, soil and atmosphere and determine whether the Red Planet had the right stuff to be habitable in ancient times.

The rover's prime target is a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) mountain inside the crater, known as Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp. The mountain's layers of rock could preserve billions of years' worth of geological history, shedding light on the planet's transition from its warmer, wetter past to its current cold, dry climate.

Some scientists think Curiosity could even detect the signs of present-day life, although NASA doesn't go that far.

UPDATE:

Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum Preparing For Shuttle Enterprise

The Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum is busy preparing for the anticipated arrival of the shuttle prototype Enterprise next week.

The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum is moving three aircrafts from its flight deck to make room for the space shuttle Enterprise.

The aircrafts are being hoisted by crane onto the pier and then a barge. They’ll be taken to the Empire State Aerosciences Museum in Glenville, N.Y.

They include a Supermarine Scimitar F.1 British Royal Navy fighter-bomber, a Douglas F3D-2 (F-10) Skyknight and a Mikoyan Gurevich MIG-15 aircraft.

They are moving several aircraft that had been displayed on the flight deck to make room for the Enterprise.

The Enterprise will be making its final flyby of the New York City metro area before landing at JFK Airport on Monday. It will be moved to the Intrepid by barge later this year when its location is prepared.

It is being flown on a specially prepared NASA Boeing 747, which while being lighter than a fully laden with passengers version, can fly only the fraction of the distance due to the higher wind resistance.

Spaced Out

Newt Gingrich gave a speech in Florida where he indicated that he would oversee the construction of a manned US space platform on the Moon by 2020.

He's hardly the first to consider a return to the moon and go beyond towards Mars and the outer planets. But because this is the Space Coast that has seen lost jobs due to the end of the space shuttle program, they're willing to grasp at straws in the hopes that some jobs could come back as a result of a renewed manned space program. It's also a political ploy in the hopes that he can gain votes over Mitt Romney.

Yet, it's a rather ambitious timeline considering the fact that President George W. Bush first indicated an intention to send a manned mission to Mars and unveiled the Constellation program. That program would provide the heavy-lift capabilities needed to send men to the Moon and then to Mars. President Obama likewise called for a return to the moon, but budgetary concerns have all but scrapped the Constellation program's manned components.

The Ares rocket system has undergone some tests, including the heavy rocket launch into Earth orbit, but no testing has been carried out for the systems designed to send men back to the moon. Even then, those systems were largely based on a combination of space shuttle and Apollo-type technologies (modern variations of the shuttle solid rocket boosters and a J-2X engine based on the engines that powered the Saturn boosters).

How can Gingrich claim that he can return the US to the moon in the number he claims when he's pulling the plug on all kinds of spending.

After all, this is the same Republican party that has called for reductions in spending that will saddle the NOAA with a diminished fleet of satellites critical for weather forecasting.

Indeed, Gingrich has repeatedly claimed that NASA has squandered billions of dollars over the years. His solution to the money crunch is to cut even more fat and to offer incentives to businesses to reach back to the Moon. Incentives still require money, and pose all kinds of questions over what incentives would be sufficient to draw businesses into such risky ventures.

The infrastructure and equipment costs for a project of this size are considerable. The costs for a manned moon mission would still be in the billions of dollars that the country can't seem to allocate for such purposes.

There's no timeline in place for a return of a US manned space program through NASA, though several private programs are in the process of testing equipment that could return Americans to space without having to hop aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket systems. The SpaceX and Dragon systems are undergoing testing, but they are incapable of the heavy-lift missions needed for a manned mission to the Moon.

Those are the two programs that are furthest along in returning Americans to space. Everything else is still on the drawing board.

NASA Unveils New Space Launch System

NASA will be several years away from being able to launch men into space after retiring the shuttle fleet, but Congress appears ready to approve a new space launch system that will be capable of not only sending men into low earth orbit, but propelling manned spacecraft to the moon or beyond - Mars.

The Obama administration on Wednesday unveiled its much-delayed general plans for its rocket design, called the Space Launch System, which will cost about $35 billion. It will begin unmanned test flights in six years, and carry astronauts in a capsule on top in a decade.

"This is a great day for NASA and the nation," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said at a U.S. Senate news conference called to unveil the concept.

Two of the senators who worked with NASA and the White House on the plan, Florida Democrat Bill Nelson and Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, said they were pleased by the plan and signaled that Congress would give its assent.

"I believe we really are going forward now, all as one, with one goal," Hutchison told journalists. She said the plan was "a commitment that NASA — NASA — is going to lead the pack."

Closer to Apollo
The size, shape and potentially heavier reliance on liquid fuel as opposed to solid rocket boosters is much closer to Apollo than the recently retired space shuttles, which were winged, reusable ships that sat on top of a giant liquid-fuel tank, with twin solid rocket boosters providing most of the power. It's also a shift in emphasis from the moon-based, solid-rocket-oriented plans proposed by the George W. Bush administration.

"It's back to the future with a reliable liquid technology," said Stanford University professor Scott Hubbard, a former NASA senior manager who was on the board that investigated the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident.

NASA figures it will be building and launching about one rocket a year for about 15 years or more in the 2020s and 2030s, according to senior administration officials who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in advance of Wednesday's announcement.

The idea is to launch its first unmanned test flight in 2017, with the first crew flying in 2021 and astronauts heading to a nearby asteroid in 2025, the officials said. From there, NASA hopes to send the rocket and astronauts to Mars — at first just to circle, but then later landing on the Red Planet — in the 2030s.

At first the rockets will be able to carry into space 77 tons to 110 tons of payload, which would include the six-person Orion multipurpose crew vehicle and more. Eventually it will be able to carry 143 tons into space, maybe even 165 tons, the officials said. By comparison, the long-dormant Saturn V booster that sent humans to the moon was able to lift 130 tons.

NASA Officially Ends Spirit Mars Mission

The mission that landed the rovers Spirit and Opportunity on the Martian surface was only supposed to last 90 days. Yet, both rovers were sending back useful information for more than 6 years although Spirit has been out of contact with controlled since March of last year. NASA has finally ended efforts to contact the probe, ending a mission that has witnessed more than 127,000 images sent back, along with geological details on rock samples taken along the rover's path.

Of course, Spirit lived a long and fruitful life on the Red Planet, something like 25 times longer than it was supposed to. Designed for a three month mission that began in 2004, Spirit logged more than six years on the job. During that time it beamed back 127,000 raw images of the Martian surface, including 16 color, 360-degree panoramas. It also drilled into 15 rock targets and scoured 92 more, gathering invaluable data on the planet’s geology.

Spirit also had a traveler’s soul, crossing the Columbia Hills and putting 4.8 miles on the odometer while crossing the Gusev Crater alone--part of it while driving backwards when one of its wheels ceased functioning in 2006. Martian winter after harsh Martian winter, Spirit returned to the job.

Cause of death: NASA engineers will likely never know for sure, but while Spirit survived the Martian winter three times previously, the most recent was particularly harsh, offering very little solar energy with which to run its survival heaters. As such, any number of critical systems could have been damaged by the cold. Engineers held out hope that the spring thaw might reawaken Spirit, but with no word yet NASA must reorient its Mars communications resources to support the upcoming launch of NASA’s next-gen rover, Curiosity (aka the Mars Science Laboratory), later this year.

Spirit ended up operating more than 25 longer than originally planned. Opportunity continues operating well beyond its original parameters and had driven many times beyond what was originally anticipated.

The durability of these tough little rovers has paved the way for a new generation of Mars exploration vehicles that will hopefully answer more questions about the Martian environment.

Of course, for those who are still of the belief that there are little green men on Mars, this is the alternative explanation for what happened to Spirit:


or:


or:



You know that NASA has done well when the success of these rovers is such that we can recycle their likenesses for humorous videos.

Competition For Displaying Retiring Space Shuttles In Home Stretch

NASA is expected to announce the three museums that will have the honor of displaying one of the three surviving space shuttles on April 12, which is the 30th anniversary of the first flight by a shuttle (Columbia) into space.

The Intrepid Sea Air Space museum is among the hopefuls, and they've got an online petition with more than 150,000 signatures. Others include the Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, the Museum of Flight, the US Air Force Museum, and California Science Center in Los Angeles. 21 organizations have submitted applications, so there are going to be a lot of disappointed museum curators and space aficionados around the nation.

Key to any bid is that the winning museums must provide a climate controlled environment for the shuttle as well as other educational displays. NASA doesn't want to repeat the mistakes it made with its displays of Apollo equipment, which was left exposed to the elements and caused significant corrosion and decay.

For the Intrepid, this would mean building an enclosure on Pier 86 adjacent to the aircraft carrier and its exhibition of aircraft and spacecraft. This is a view of the Intrepid's mockup of a shuttle on display at Pier 86:

It's expected that Discovery will end up at the Smithsonian, which means that the two remaining shuttles - Endeavor and Atlantis will split between the remaining 20 sites. Each of the winning bids will have to provide nearly $30 million to NASA for preparing the shuttles for public display, including decontamination of propellant and other changes.

Another aspect that NASA will take into account is the number of people who would visit the shuttles, and gain exposure to the shuttle program, space exploration, and be inspired by such exposure in the future.

The Intrepid site would be an ideal platform, with millions of school kids in the NYC metro area, the largest tourist destination in the US, and a central location in Manhattan.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Provides Stunning New Images Of Sun

NASA's latest mission to study the sun has already reaped benefits with the release of new photos and video taken from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. They are absolutely stunning with the clarity and scope of detail picked up on the surface of the sun in multiple wavelengths.

Some of the images from the spacecraft show never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Others show extreme close-ups of activity on the sun’s surface. The spacecraft also has made the first high-resolution measurements of solar flares in a broad range of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths.

"These initial images show a dynamic sun that I had never seen in more than 40 years of solar research,” said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "SDO will change our understanding of the sun and its processes, which affect our lives and society. This mission will have a huge impact on science, similar to the impact of the Hubble Space Telescope on modern astrophysics.”

The SDO will send back 1.5 terabytes of data every day, which gives scientists quite a bit of information to work through.

The information will help determine when solar flares might occur as well as explore the nature of sunspots and their multi-year cycles.

NASA Test Finds Significant Amounts of Water On Moon

This is a huge discovery since it means that future explorers to our closest celestial neighbor may have the means to sustain their existence without requiring constant resupply from Earth for their most basic of needs.

The satellite, known as Lcross (pronounced L-cross), slammed into a crater near the Moon’s south pole a month ago. The impact carved out a hole 60- to 100-feet wide and kicked up at least 24 gallons of water.

“We got more than just whiff,” said Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator of the mission. “We practically tasted it with the impact.”

For more than a decade, planetary scientists have seen tantalizing hints of water ice at the bottom of these cold craters where the sun never shines. The Lcross mission consisted of two pieces — an empty rocket stage to carve into the lunar surface and a small spacecraft to measure what was kicked up, but it too slammed into the surface.

For space enthusiasts who stayed up, or woke up early, to watch the impact on Oct. 9, the event was anticlimactic, even disappointing, as they failed to see the anticipated debris plume. But NASA later said that a plume was indeed photographed; the live video stream was not properly attuned to pick out the details.

The Gorgeous Science of the Hubble Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope was saved from an early ignominious shutdown after public opinion forced NASA to reconsider a mission to repair the Hubble. NASA had not wanted to carry out the mission because a flight profile to the Hubble would mean that if the shuttle were damaged during liftoff there was no way for the shuttle crew to seek refuge at the international space station while a replacement shuttle was sent up to rescue the crew.

It's a good thing that the Hubble was repaired and improved with new technologies, because the new images being beamed back to Earth are positively gorgeous.

The ultraviolet and infrared images of galaxies and nebulas are sharper than previous photos taken of the by Hubble before the upgrades.

"We couldn't be more thrilled with the quality of the images," said Keith Noll, leader of a team at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which planned the early release observations. "The targets we've selected to showcase the telescope reveal the great range of capabilities in our newly upgraded Hubble."

Hubble has beamed amazing images back to Earth before. Earlier this summer, the telescope snapped pictures of the planet Jupiter when an asteroid smashed into it.

NASA said it plans to keep the powerful telescope in operation until 2013.

More images are here. There's much science to be done before the telescope is replaced in 2013, when a new space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope is placed in orbit.

A Giant Leap, And Then A Sputter

40 years ago today, NASA landed men on the moon for the first time in human history. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history walking the dusty Sea of Tranquility while Michael Collins orbited the moon, setting records of his own for being the most distant solo astronaut in history. Collins also designed the mission patch.

From that moment of glory, set in motion less than a decade before by JFK's stirring words to go to the moon, and just 66 years since man first took to the skies in powered flight, we've seen the US squander that technological capacity and the NASA mission has become a muddled mess. The last men set foot on the moon in 1972. We have not been back since.

Following the end of the Apollo program, we've seen NASA fumble with Skylab and then the shuttle program. Sure, NASA has gotten some spectacular achievements with its unmanned scientific programs, including the Viking missions to Mars, the Voyager probes, and various other solar explorers, and then with the Hubble space telescope, but the manned program has been in search of a mission that could give NASA needed direction.

Going back to the moon seems likely, although it is possible that the Chinese might get back there first. President Bush called for a mission to Mars, but that is quite unlikely in the current economic climate and NASA still can't quite figure out how to build the capabilities to return to the moon.

Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins, who circled the moon alone while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on it, said the moon was not interesting, but Mars is.

"Sometimes I think I flew to the wrong place. Mars was always my favorite as a kid and it still is today,'' Collins said. "I'd like to see Mars become the focus, just as John F. Kennedy focused on the moon.''

The man who founded and directed Mission Control Houston, Christopher Kraft Jr., also jumped on the go-somewhere-new, do-something-different bandwagon.

"What we need is new technology; we have not had that since Apollo,'' Kraft said as part of the lecture at the Smithsonian. "I say to Mr. Obama: Let's get on with it. Let's invest in the future.''

As the men of NASA of the 1960s talked about new technology and new goals, the current NASA is still looking back at the moon.

NASA is still marching toward a goal of returning to the moon of Armstrong and Aldrin and this time putting a base there. The current plan is based on building new rockets that the former NASA administrator called "Apollo on steroids,'' with an alternative -- a derivative of the space shuttle -- floating through the space agency.

That is the greatest shame of all; we were there, and we didn't know what to do next. It's past time to figure out the next step and to get it done.

UPDATE:
Here's video of that momentous event:

NASA Releasing Restored Apollo 11 Video Footage

NASA has restored footage of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, and it reveals details lacking in the footage previously released. It uses the latest computer processing to enhance detail in the film, bringing out detail from shaded areas.

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Shuttle Atlantis Launch Footage

This is the last time that a space shuttle is expected to service the Hubble Space Telescope, so it has special significance. It's also among the riskiest missions that NASA has planned because if there's a problem with the shuttle that prevents it from returning to earth, NASA would have to send up another shuttle within days to rescue the stranded Atlantis.

NASA Checking Possible Problems With Shuttle Rudder

NASA is trying to figure out what floated away from the space shuttle Discovery, and what's sticking out of its tail.

Both issues cropped up after a routine flight control test before its scheduled landing tomorrow. The astronauts told Mission Control they saw a rectangular object about a foot to a foot and a-half long floating away from the tail.

Then pilot Ken Ham said they noticed "a little bump kind of sticking out" from the left side of the rudder on the tail. Engineers speculate that the floating object could be something from the payload bay or a piece of ice.

And they say the protrusion might be a small piece of thermal insulation sticking out. Mission Control says it'll "take a look" at video and photos the astronauts sent down.

After the Columbia disaster, NASA can't afford to take any chances with the safety of their remaining shuttle systems, so they'll conduct a more thorough examination of the information being sent down from the shuttle as it prepares for landing.

Reports indicate that the debris appears to be be one of three small metallic thermal clips that reside in the shuttle's tail-mounted rudder speed break.

Figures

NASA's press office has been caught by the Inspector General mischaracterizing and misreporting studies relating to global climate changes.

A government watchdog says NASA's press office "marginalized, or mischaracterized" studies on global warming between 2004 and 2006.

The NASA inspector general's report called it "inappropriate political interference."

The report issued Monday found that the agency's top management wasn't part of censorship, nor were career officials. It blamed "political appointees."

The full text of the OIG report can be found here. The Press Office violated all kinds of rules, but the OIG found that the underlying science was not affected.

Accordingly, the NASA Office of Inspector General conducted an administrative investigation to examine reports of alleged "political interference," predominantly by senior NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs officials, with the work of NASA scientists pertaining to climate change--to include whether NASA inappropriately prevented one of its scientists, Dr. James E. Hansen, from speaking to the media in December 2005.

Our investigation found that during the fall of 2004 through early 2006, the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public through those particular media over which the Office of Public Affairs had control (i.e., news releases and media access). We also concluded that the climate change editorial decisions were localized within the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs; we found no credible evidence suggesting that senior NASA or Administration officials directed the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs to minimize information relating to climate change. To the contrary, we found that once NASA leadership within the Office of the Administrator were made aware of the scope of the conflict between the Office of Public Affairs and scientists working on climate change, they aggressively implemented new policies with a view toward improved processes in editorial decision-making relating to scientific public affairs matters.

Further, it is our conclusion that the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs' actions were inconsistent with the mandate and intent of NASA's controlling legislation--the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 19581 (Space Act) and NASA's implementing regulations--insomuch as they prevented "the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination" of information concerning NASA's activities and results. While we could not substantiate that Administration officials employed outside NASA approved or disapproved or edited specific news releases, we do, however, find by a preponderance of the evidence2 that the claims of inappropriate political interference made by the climate change scientists and career Public Affairs Officers were more persuasive than the arguments of the senior Public Affairs officials that their actions were due to the volume and poor quality of the draft news releases. Although the scientific information alleged to be "suppressed" appeared to be otherwise available through a variety of Agency forums, we cannot reconcile that the Space Act would permit any purposeful obfuscation of scientific research by the Agency in any news dissemination forum as "appropriate" under the Act.

Phoenix Reporting In From Mars

The latest US unmanned probe to Mars has successfully landed and is now broadcasting the first imagery. They include photos of the craft and of its immediate surroundings.

Unlike the Spirit and Opportunity missions, which included mobile rovers that could explore the surrounding areas, the Phoenix is a stationary platform from which experiments will be conducted. It was originally conceived as part of the "faster, better, cheaper" approach to unmanned missions, but when several other Mars probes were lost, the Phoenix mission was scrubbed and rethought. Nearly 50% of missions to Mars have ended in failure.

The Phoenix Landing

The US has sent an unmanned probe to Mars, the Phoenix, which is supposed to be landing on Mars later this evening. MSNBC provides a live feed of discussion and coverage of the landing.

This landing will differ from prior landings since the lander is targeting the Martian North Polar region.

Here's a breakdown of scheduled events prior to, and after, landing.

UPDATE:
The Phoenix has landed, and the scientists are determining the craft's status. The next major task is to unfurl the solar arrays.

Endeavour Set To Land At Kennedy Space Center

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour is set to land shortly, and it's made it through the toughest part of the landing - reentry into Earth's atmosphere. Landing will be at Kennedy Space Center.

You can watch the landing via the Video service at NASA.

Missing The Story

Yesterday, it was revealed that NASA cooked the books on its temperature data that formed the basis of the longstanding argument that 1998 was the warmest year in the US on record.

1934 actually is the warmest - as the data was felled by a latent Y2k error, but which was only discovered because a scientist reverse engineered the data to determine that was the case. Indeed, five of the 10 warmest years on record come from the pre-WWII period, and only three have occurred within the last decade.

This doesn't prove that global warming doesn't exist, but it casts doubts on many of the assumptions made by the global warming types.

So, you would think that a major correction to the data that provides one of the key 'facts' used by the global warming crowd would get some media play? Eh, not so much.

Why is it that the media isn't picking up on this story - if only to turn the tables on Newsweek, which invested so heavily in last week's agitprop puff piece that claimed only the GW deniers were doing it because of the evil money cult? If there were ever an opportunity to exploit a gaffe at the expense of a competitor, this would be the case. Yet, there is nothing to suggest that the media even cares to run the story about the corrected data and its possible implications.

Drudge is no better, as Ace notes at the aforementioned link. He's not running the correction either, which is a shame, since he has the ability to get ahead of the rest of the media on this and force a rexamination of the story.

Paul at Wizbang has another tale of woe on global warming.