Aerospace

The Finest Mirrors Ever Made, And Their 10-Minute Mission

On July 11, NASA scientists will launch into space the highest resolution solar telescope ever to observe the solar corona, the million degree outer solar atmosphere. But it will only last 10 minutes.  ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 7 2012 - 9:14pm

Jansky Very Large Array Gets First Light

The Very Large Array (VLA) radio astronomy observatory, named for American physicist Karl Guthe Jansky, who discovered radio waves emanating from the Milky Way in 1931, is the largest and most capable radio telescope in the world ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 20 2012 - 10:42am

IRVE-3: Hypersonic Inflatable Heat Shield Is A Go

NASA's Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3), a large inflatable heat shield developed, was launched by sounding rocket at 7:01 a.m. Monday from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va.  It successfully survived a trip throu ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 23 2012 - 7:51pm

Lego-style Vs Custom Shop CubeSat Construction

There are several schools of thought on building a CubeSat or other picosatellite.  We will contrast what we call Lego-style with what we'll dub the Custom Shop approach. Lego Style suggests using the easiest, rather than the most efficient, parts and ...

Article - Project Calliope - Aug 3 2012 - 5:18pm

Curiosity And Mars: Party Like It's August 5th, 2012

Curiosity, the  Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, remains in good health and is just one day and 12 hours from touchdown on Mars. All systems are go and it is doing so well the planned Trajectory Correction Maneuver 5 (TCM-5) and its update to parameters ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Aug 4 2012 - 12:44pm

Pyros Small Tactical Munition Scores Hit In Field Testing

Pyros small tactical munition completed a successful warhead and guidance system test, according to Raytheon. There are three choices for guiding the weapon to the target: GPS coordinates, inertial navigation or laser designation.    There are also three o ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 7 2012 - 7:00pm

Curiosity Can Haz Cam: What Is That Blotch On The Mars Horizon?

The landing of a cute robot on Mars really resonated with American popular culture this past weekend; and so the first few images Curiosity snapped have caught fire as well, including a blotch that was no longer there in later pictures. Curiosity landed at ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Sep 4 2012 - 10:38pm

The Near Future Of Manned Spaceflight

I've been feeling a bit inspired about our prospects in space, lately.  Foremost (of course) by the incredible competence displayed by the makers of the Curiosity probe that landed on Mars, last week, and the JPL controllers and the citizenry that ba ...

Article - David Brin - Sep 4 2012 - 5:21pm

First Light For Dark Energy Camera- The CCDs That Made It Happen

Early in the morning of September 12th the Dark Energy Camera (DECam),  the most powerful sky survey instrument yet built, mounted on the Victor Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile recorded its first images of a souther ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 18 2012 - 6:30am

Huygens Didn't Land On Titan With A Splat- And Why That Is Scientifically Important

In January, 2005, ESA’s Huygens probe bounced, slid and wobbled its way to rest for 10 seconds after touching down on Saturn’s moon, Titan. As you can imagine, that tells scientists quite a bit about the nature of that moon’s surface. They reconstructed th ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 11 2012 - 7:30pm