Space Talk

NASA hosted a media teleconference at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, July 9 to provide details about a report that will help define science objectives for the agency's next Mars rover. The report is from the Mars 2020 Science Definition Team (SDT). The report and story are available on the SpaceRef website.

Listen in as NASA outlines its fiscal year 2014 budget and discusses new and existing projects.

This morning at 10:10 a.m. EST, a SpaceX Falcon 9 with Dragon spacecraft launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on its second of 12 NASA contracted resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS). Less than 24 hours after launching, the SpaceX Dragon was supposed to arrive at the ISS where the station crew would grapple and berth the spacecraft to the ISS for an expected three week visit. However, after the Dragon spacecraft had separated from the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, and just before the Dragon solar arrays were to deploy, an anomaly occurred with the thrusters where only one of four was enabled. The spacecraft appeared to be in the correct orbit. Full story online at http://spaceref.biz

NASA held a media briefing with SpaceX to discuss Friday's launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 with Dragon capsule as part of the NASA commercial resupply mission program to the International Space Station. This is the second official cargo resupply mission (CRS-20). The first launch opportunity for CRS-2 is currently scheduled for 10:10 AM ET on Friday, March 1.

On February 27th, 2013 Dennis Tito and his team discussed the newly formed Inspiration Mars non-profit organization and its plan for the first human mission to Mars. Learn more about this ground breaking inspiring mission. "A unique window of opportunity for humankind will open in January 2018, and the Inspiration Mars Foundation intends to seize it, announcing plans today to pursue a challenging manned mission to Mars and back. This historic 501-day journey around the Red Planet is made possible by a rare planetary alignment that occurs five years from now. Two professional crew members - one man, one woman - flying as private citizens will embark on what is known as a "fast, free-return" mission, passing within 100 miles of Mars before swinging back and safely returning to Earth. Target launch date is Jan. 5, 2018."

The Mars rover Curiosity's team is beginning to amass enough diverse science data to actively consider whether the area around its first drilling site was potentially habitable. At the same time the science team is readying the rover's most powerful instruments to search for organic carbon and minerals supportive to life in its first sample of gray powdered subsurface rock. Read the full story on SpaceRef.

Estimated to have been a 9 tonnes in size, a meteorite streaked across the sky over the Ural mountains in Russia and exploded at 30 to 50 kilometres above ground. The supersonic reentry injured an estimated 1100 people according to reports in Russia. Part of the meteor crashed into a frozen lake. An estimated 3000 buildings were damaged in the city of Chelyabinsk, including the roof collapsing at a zinc factory.

The small near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass very close, but will not hit the Earth on Feb. 15, 2013. It will be so close that it will pass inside the ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites. Learn more about this asteroid and research opportunity it presents.

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) today announced they had selected Lockheed Martin Space Systems as a partner on its Dream Chaser program in its ongoing effort for NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Lockheed Martin was competitively selected and will be the exclusive partner to SNC on its NASA Certification Products Contract (CPC). Lockheed will build the composite structure for the Dream Chaser at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. SNC was awarded $10 million for CPC Phase 1 to work with NASA towards government certification of the SNC Dream Chaser orbital crew transportation system.

NASA hosted a media teleconference on Wednesday, September 19 to provide a status update on the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater. During the briefing researchers discussed an unusual football-size rock that will be the first for the rover's arm to examine. Participants in the teleconference were Richard Cook, JPL; Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager, John Grotzinger, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; Mars Science Laboratory Project Scientist, Mark Lemmon, Texas A&M University, College Station; Mars Science Laboratory Science Team Co-Investigator.

The extent of the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean has shrunk. According to scientists from NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., the amount is the smallest size ever observed in the three decades since consistent satellite observations of the polar cap began. The panelists for the briefing are: Joey Comiso, senior research scientist, Goddard and Walt Meier, research scientist, NSDIC. A video is available on our web site.

NASA hosted a media teleconference at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT) on Thursday, Sept. 6, to provide a status update on the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is one month into a two-year mission to investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.

NASA today announced the selection of a Discovery Class mission to Mars called the InSight mission. This telecon has remarks about the mission and questions from the press. The panelists for the briefing are: -- John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator, NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington -- James Green, director, NASA's Planetary Science Division, Washington NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our solar system's rocky planets. The new mission, named InSight, will place instruments on the Martian surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth's and why Mars' crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like Earth's. Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how terrestrial planets form and evolve.

An update about the Mars Science Laboratory mission including questions from the media. As well new images from the Curiosity rover have been released as part of a NASA teleconference that took place on Friday, Aug. 17, 2012. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/telecon/index.html

Listen in to this teleconference from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory team on a new discovery: The Phoenix Cluster Sets Record Pace at Forming Stars. Astronomers have found an extraordinary galaxy cluster, one of the largest objects in the universe, that is breaking several important cosmic records. Observations of the Phoenix cluster with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the National Science Foundation's South Pole Telescope, and eight other world-class observatories may force astronomers to rethink how these colossal structures and the galaxies that inhabit them evolve. The panelists on the teleconference are: -- Michael McDonald, Hubble Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. -- Bradford Benson, astrophysicist, University of Chicago -- Megan Donahue, professor of astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing -- Martin Rees, professor of cosmology and astrophysics, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom