European Space Agency have got photo of the asteroid Lutetia in the range of 280 million around Mars and Jupiter

BERLIN The European Space Agency has taken the closest look yet at asteroid Lutetia in an extraordinary quest some 280 million miles in outer space between Mars and Jupiter.The comet-chaser Rosetta transmitted its first pictures from the largest asteroid ever visited by a satellite Saturday night after it flew by Lutetia as close as 1,900 miles (3,200 kilometers), ESA said in Darmstadt, Germany.”These are fantastic and exciting pictures,” space agency scientist Rita Schulz said in a webcast presentation. She said it would take several weeks before all 400 pictures and all data from the high-precision instruments aboard Rosetta would come through to Earth.”I am a very happy man,” said ESA manager David Southwood. “It is a great day for European Science and for world science.”Though Lutetia was discovered some 150 years ago, for a long time it was little more than a point of light to those on Earth. Only recent high-resolution ground-based imaging has given a vague view of the asteroid, the agency said.”At the moment we know very little about it,” Schulz said.

Lutetia is believed to be 83.3 miles (134 kilometers) in diameter with a “pronounced elongation,” but scientists have been puzzled as to what type of asteroid it is – a “primitive” one containing carbon compounds or a metallic asteroid.”We are now going to get the details of this asteroid, which is very important,” Schulz said. “There will be a lot of science coming from that mission.”

Scientists hope to find in the information and images gathered by Rosetta clues to the history of comets and asteroids and of the solar system, Schulz said.For Rosetta, examining Lutetia and other asteroids is only a side event on its long journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – the mission’s destination, said project manager Gerhard Schwehm.Rosetta was launched in 2004 and is expected to reach its target in 2014.Though the wait is long, scientists are certain it is going to be worthwhile, Schwehm said.”We want to study the material out of which the planets formed,” he said. This is possible only close up, he said.(AP)

The threat of Hurricane Sun, 20 times larger than the effects of Hurricane Katrina

Solar activity would become more active and will result in negative effects for the Earth. To prepare for the worst, a leading solar scientists gathered in Washington DC, USA Tuesday, June 8, 2010, to discuss the best ways to protect satellites and Earth’s vital systems of the solar storm.

Solar storm occurs when some point the sun burst and spew splashing of particles that can be damaging. This activity took place in a cycle of 11 years. “The sun has got up from bed length. And in the next few years we will see solar activity in the higher level,” said the head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, Richard Fisher, like the Christian Science Monitor published pages.

‘At the same time, technological society is developing a new sense of the storm the sun. Society in the 21st century rely heavily on high-tech systems in everyday life are susceptible to storm the sun. GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could all die suddenly by solar activity. Economic damage caused by solar storms are expected twenty times larger than Hurricane Katrina – as a warning, issued the National Academy of Sciences in a report in 2008.

Fortunately, a lot of damage can be overcome if it knows when a storm is coming. That is why understanding of solar weather and a better ability to provide early warning, it is very important. Placing the satellite in ‘safe mode’ and release the transformer in order to protect the electronics from damaging power surge.

“Space weather forecast is still under development, but we’re making rapid progress,” said Thomas Bogdan, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NASA and NOAA are working together to manage the fleet of satellites that monitor the sun and help to predict changes in solar.

A pair of spacecraft called Stereo (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is located on the opposite side of the sun, which can display a mix of 90 percent of the solar surface. In addition, the SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory which), which has just launched in February 2010, can produce new photo active part in the solar surface.

Also, an old satellite, called the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), which was launched in 1997, still monitoring the sun. “I believe we are on the verge of new era where space weather can affect our lives everyday like usual weather of the earth.” Fisher said. “For us, this is very serious.”

Robonaut 2/R2 will become permanent residents of the international space station

United States space agency, NASA, will get a new crew in outer space. NASA’s new astronauts are unique, because he’s not human, but robots that resemble humans. This robot will be sent into space this year. Astronaut robot called Robonaut 2 or R2 will become permanent residents of the international space station.Robot astronaut is a project of cooperation between NASA with General Motors (GM) – an American car company. R2 specification does not indiscriminate. He must be able to become an assistant and worked with humans, both astronauts in outer space on Earth maupung GM workers.

Robot R2 weighing 300 pounds was made up of head, body, with two arms and two hands. R2 will be launched simultaneously with the launch of space shuttle Discovery, as part of STS-133 mission planned next September. While R2 flight out, engineers on Earth will continue to monitor the robot working in a room without weights. For a while, the activity of R2 will be limited in the Destiny laboratory. However, in the future, with additional modifications, this will enable robots to work more broadly, outside or in a complex space station.

“The project is realizing the promise that in the future, robots could work in outer space or on Earth. Not only to replace humans, but also works with humans,” said Director of NASA’s Exploration Systems in Washington, John’s Olson, just as it loaded the page NASA. “Combined robotic and human potential, will allow us to go far, reaching more than what we can possibly imagine today. Not just shapes such as humans, R2 is also similar to the way humans work, can even replace humans in dangerous tasks. For now, still a prototype and R2 do not have adequate protection to exist outside the space station in extreme temperatures.

the shuttle will be sold at a price of £ 17.7 million

WASHINGTON  For the billionaire who has a unique hobby, get ready for spent your cash out  because the United States Space Agency (NASA) issued a supply of interesting. NASA offered their spacecraft, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor, to be sold to the public. The aircraft was passengers eight people, has traveled 341,311,994 miles, with a top speed of 17.231 miles per hour. That number is the accumulation of the three aircraft. Not only was already retired aircraft is also equipped with six pockets to puke. The planes have been served out of the sky over 129 times since 1981. Besides this large aircraft was orbiting in space over 13.662 times. So reported The Sun, Friday (12/2/2010). Now anyone interested to buy used planes full of history but an amazing adventure, needs to raise approximately £ 17.7 million.

But sales in this plane for plane body only, while the engine certainly will not share sold. If the buyer is forced to buy as well as aircraft engines and tried to take him out space, the owner will probably not be able to finance one-way trip out space missions.
This is due to the high cost for a single space mission. Money 820 million pounds or approximately £ 17.7 million is needed for all missions. Enough money to be issued an adventure, even for a millionaire though. Discovery own aircraft is now owned by the American Space Museum in Washington. As for the other two aircraft, NASA has declared a deadline to supply the aircraft on February 19 next.

Boeing X-37 The USAF's Secret Spaceplane

It’s been a long wait—in some ways, more than 50 years—but in April 2010, the U.S. Air Force is scheduled to launch an Atlas V booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the newest U.S. spacecraft, the unmanned X-37, to orbit. The X-37 embodies the Air Force’s desire for an operational space-plane, a wish that dates to the 1950s, the era of the rocket-powered X-15 and X-20. In other ways, though, the X-37 will be picking up where another U.S. space-plane, NASA’s space shuttle, leaves off.

With a wingspan of 15 feet and a length of 27.5 feet, the X-37 looks like a tiny space shuttle. It has a blunt (though windowless) nose, and one rocket engine bell instead of the shuttle’s three. Two cargo doors open just as the shuttle’s do, revealing a four- by seven-foot bay. Like the shuttle, the X-37 was designed for low Earth orbits—in the latter’s case, altitudes of 125 to 575 miles. And the craft will fly like a shuttle, reentering the atmosphere with the orbiter’s 40-degree nose-high attitude. After reentry, it will change to a 20-degree nose-down glide and, flying at up to 220 mph, land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, with Edwards Air Force Base as an alternate.

But as for the period between launch and landing, no one, save for a select few in the Department of Defense, knows exactly what the little Boeing-built space-plane will do, or for how long. The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which is running the program, says only that the orbital test version, the X-37B, will take a suite of next-generation technologies to orbit and will break new ground in the realm of launch, recovery, and reuse, all with an unmanned twist that the shuttle never offered.

At a 2008 Space Foundation breakfast in Washington, D.C., Gary Payton, deputy under secretary of the Air Force for space programs, recalled the X-37’s origins. Payton started the program while at NASA. “Then, the X-37 was intended to be a testbed for new technologies that could retrofit into the shuttle: predominantly guidance, navigation, and control, and [thermal protection system] technologies,” he said. In that era, planners imagined the shuttle carrying the X-37 to space in its cargo bay and releasing it.

Now, with the shuttle’s retirement looming, it appears the X-37 will have an independent, post-shuttle life. Payton envisioned such a role for the X-37, saying: “It would be really advantageous in my mind if we had a system you could launch, recover, change out the payload bay quickly, and put into a different orbit, and do all that measured in weeks instead of decades.” David Hamilton, director of the Rapid Capabilities Office, says in an e-mail: “Eventually, I see the unique possibility to operate X-37B more like an aircraft and explore the needs of responsive, reusable spacecraft.” Unlike a satellite, he points out, the space-plane returns, enabling “detailed inspection and significantly better learning than can be achieved with [a satellite’s] remote telemetry alone. Experiments can be modified and re-flown, with the objective of shortening the technology maturation time line.”

“The space shuttle was designed to be a very heavy payload lifter, and it has performed that job extremely well,” says Mark Lewis, a University of Maryland hypersonic expert who recently completed a four-year appointment as chief scientist for the Air Force. “But you don’t need to send a Mack truck into space when a Toyota Celica will do.”The question is: Will do what? Lewis, whose enthusiastic speech barely keeps pace with his mind, is happy to talk about the skin-deep similarities between the shuttle and the X-37. (“A lot of the basic reentry physics is treated the same way,” he says. “Blunt configurations. The shuttle has very blunt leading edges.”) But when he’s asked about anything more than the X-37’s aerodynamics, he clams up.

So does everyone else. “While some aspects of the…program have been designated as unclassified and been released to the public; information regarding specific technical and performance capabilities will not be released at this time,” writes David Hamilton. “Hide it in plain view,” says one observer of the Air Force’s practice of letting out just a little about the X-37, enough to make it seem like it will never be more than a research tool.

Hamilton does say that “once declared operational, the X-37B could have applications to support missions such as space situational awareness; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; on-orbit servicing and repair; and satellite deployment and/or retrieval.”

It’s possible the space-plane could have a role in national security, particularly since China, India, Japan, and even Iran have begun to exploit space. In December 2007, photographs of an unmanned, classified Chinese space-plane, the Shenlong, or “Divine Dragon,” began to appear on Chinese Web sites. Though hitched to the underside of a bomber, rather than perched atop an expendable booster, the mysterious Shenlong has a blunt nose and single rocket engine bell, making its appearance strikingly similar to the X-37’s.

The U.S. program started out relatively open to view, a research effort jointly shaped by the Air Force, NASA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and Boeing. The Air Force ordered the first prototype, the X-40A, from Boeing in 1996. When it came time to produce the next iteration, the X-37A drop-test vehicle, NASA had the company increase the size by about 20 percent.

But since then, the X-37 has taken a winding and perplexing path among NASA, DARPA, and the Air Force. From 2004 to 2006, DARPA oversaw it. Along the way, both the X-40A and the X-37A have been drop-tested (first over New Mexico in 1998 and California in 2006, respectively), which proved their automated approach and landing abilities. Finally the program was taken over by the Air Force. Today, call up any of these organizations and say “X-37” and it’s like spraying a garden hose at housecats.

Atlantis Astronauts Make 1st Spacewalk of Mission

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.A pair of astronauts ventured out on the first spacewalk of their shuttle mission Thursday to tackle some antenna and cable work at the International Space Station.The linked shuttle-station was soaring over South America when Michael Foreman and Dr. Robert Satcher Jr. emerged from the hatch.Satcher, the first orthopedic surgeon in space, was awed by the view 220 miles below. “Beautiful,” he murmured. His partner, a veteran spacewalker, couldn’t resist poking a little fun.”Hard to believe, Bobby, I think your feet look bigger from space,” Foreman joked.Two more spacewalks are planned in coming days to perform space station maintenance and get the orbiting outpost ready for the next shuttle visitors.Atlantis will remain at the space station until Wednesday.

Already, the 12 space travelers have unloaded several tons of pumps, tanks and other big spare parts that came up on Atlantis. They took care of that just hours after the shuttle docked at the station Wednesday.All the gear should keep the space station operating well past next fall’s shuttle retirement.The shuttle is the only craft large enough to haul these oversize pieces for the space station. That’s why NASA is so keen on flying the parts now, long before they’re needed.NASA plans to keep the outpost running until at least 2015.Five more shuttle missions remain, all devoted to space station work.Astronaut Nicole Stott, who’s winding up a nearly three-month space mission, celebrated her 47th birthday Thursday. She’ll have to wait until the shuttle brings her back at the end of next week to blow out her candles. Flames are verboten in orbit.

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Rosetta Probe Makes Final Earth Flyby

This spectacular image of our home planet was captured by Europe’s Rosetta probe as it made its third and final flyby of Earth, before heading towards a comet. The outline of Antarctica is visible under the clouds in the illuminated crescent. Pack ice in front of the coastline caused the very bright spots on the image.

It was taken by the-board camera OSIRIS yesterday, from a distance of 393,000miles. The picture combines three images taken with orange, green and blue filters and has a resolution of 7.5miles/pixel.

Rosetta made its closest approach to Earth at 7.45am (GMT) today at an altitude of 1,540miles – which is inside the orbits of geostationary telecoms satellites. However, European Space Agency (ESA) scientists said Rosetta would be extremely difficult to spot from the ground and only large telescope could pick up the faint fast-moving object.

The fly-by will give Rosetta the gravitational boost it needs to speed towards Jupiter, via the asteroid Lutetia in July 2010. The probe will hibernate for the coldest part of its epic journey from mid 2011 to spring 2014.

If all goes well it will respond to a ‘wake-up call’ and chase down the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in May 2014. The successful swingby was confirmed at 8.05am (GMT) when mission controllers re-established contact with Rosetta via ESA’s station in Spain.

The comet chaser has now flown 2,800million miles of its 4,400million mile journey, passing Earth three times and Mars once. Some of Rosetta’s instruments have been on since early November, performing imaging and atmospheric observations of Earth, as well as looking for water on the Moon.

The 10ft by 6.5ft craft is packed with scientific instruments to study the ball of ice, rock and dust. Rosetta will firstly orbit the 2.5mile comet and make a detailed map of its surface. It will then release a washing-machine-sized lander called Philae, which will anchor onto the comet as it sweeps into the inner Solar System.

As the speeding comet heads towards the Sun, the radiation will cause the ices on the comet to turn straight from a solid into a gas. Material will be ejected at supersonic speeds in the form of a tail. The Rosetta orbiter and Philae lander will record the process and send data back to Earth.

The ambitious mission will have taken 10 years once completed. Rosetta is named after the Rosetta Stone, a stone tablet discovered in 1799 by Napoleon’s forces as they invaded Egypt. Just as the Rosetta Stone enabled the hieroglyphs to be deciphered, scientists hope that the Rosetta mission will provide some clues to help them understand more about our Solar System.(daily mail )