Space and Astronomy News: 2012

Monday, December 31, 2012

Space Radiation May Accelerate Alzheimer's in Astronauts

Radiation in space might harm the brains of astronauts in deep space by accelerating the development of Alzheimer's disease, a new study on mice suggests.

The research reveals another risk that manned deep-space missions to places such as Mars or the asteroids could pose, scientists added.

'This study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's disease,' study author Kerry O'Banion, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said in a statement.

Space is filled with radiation that can harm people. While Earth's magnetic field generally protects the planet, once astronauts venture beyond low-Earth orbit, they are constantly bombarded by a shower of dangerous particles known as cosmic rays. The longer an astronaut is in deep space, the greater the risk, which is especially of concern given NASA plans for manned missions to an asteroid in 2025 and to Mars by about 2035 - the round trip to the Red Planet alone could take at least two years.

For more than 25 years, NASA has funded studies to see what the potential dangers of space travel might be. For instance, past research analyzed the potential impact of cosmic rays on the risk for cancer and potential problems with the cardiovascular or musculoskeletal systems.

Now scientists have for the first time examined the effects space radiation might have on neurodegeneration - in particular, the biological processes in the brain linked with the development of Alzheimer's disease, which typically involves progressive mental decline over several years. They found 'galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts,' O'Banion said. [Inside the Brain: Photo Journey Through Time]

Perils of space radiation

O'Banion and his colleaguesinvestigated a specific kind of space radiation known as high-mass, high-charged (or HZE) particles. These particles zip through space at very high speeds, likely the result of exploding stars and other deep-space catastrophes from elsewhere in the galaxy. Unlike cosmic rays consisting just of hydrogen nuclei, which solar flares generate, the mass and speed of HZE particles allow them to punch through solid objects such as a spacecraft, or any astronauts inside.

'Because iron particles pack a bigger wallop, it is extremely difficult from an engineering perspective to effectively shield against them,' O'Banion said. 'One would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a 6-foot (2 meters) block of lead or concrete.'

The scientists focused on the impact of iron HZE particles generated by particle accelerators at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. Mice were dosed throughout their body with levels of radiation comparable to what astronauts might receive during a mission to Mars.

The mental function of the mice was tested with a series of experiments - for instance, they had to recognize places linked with unpleasant electric shocks to their feet - and rodents dosed with radiation were far more likely to fail at these tasks. The brains of the mice also showed signs of inflamed blood vessels, and possessed abnormally high levels of beta amyloid, a protein that accumulates as one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease.

'These findings clearly suggest that exposure to radiation in space has the potential to accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease,' O'Banion said. 'This is yet another factor that NASA, which is clearly concerned about the health risks to its astronauts, will need to take into account as it plans future missions.'

Space radiation vs. astronaut

It remains uncertain why these HZE particles might have this effect on the brain.

'This is, of course, the $10 million question,' O'Banion told SPACE.com. The fact the researchers saw a blood vessel response, but not clear evidence of brain inflammation 'suggests the possibility that the radiation effects are actually in the body of the mice, and that changes there might be affecting amyloid deposition.'

O'Banion did caution 'we gave the radiation all at once - the mice experienced over a few minutes what astronauts will experience over three years. We have no idea whether the biological effects of HZE particles will be the same when given at low dose rates. Many would argue that ours is a worse-case scenario, and that the changes are likely to be entirely different since the body might adapt to small chronic dosing.'

In the future, O'Banion and his colleagues will examine the effects the brain experiences from exposure to radiation elsewhere in the body. They also plan to see whether space radiation might influence development of Parkinson's disease.

'I would add that there are at least three other laboratories pursuing similar studies,' O'Banion said. 'The nice thing about this is that we will soon know if our results hold up in other labs.'

The scientists detailed their findings online Dec. 31 in the journal PLOS ONE.

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Is NASA Lost in Space or Aimed at Asteroid?

A report this month from the National Research Council (NRC) has called NASA's overall trajectory into question. It pointed out the national disagreement over the U.S. space agency's goals and objectives, a disparity detrimental to the organization's planning and budgeting efforts.

The 12-person blue-ribbon study group observed that the White House should take the lead in forging 'a new consensus' on NASA's future in order to more closely align the agency's budget and objectives and remove restrictions impeding NASA's efficient operations.

For one, the NRC study team took aim at a lofty directive to NASA by President Barack Obama when he spoke at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in April 2010:

'Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space. So we'll start.we'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it.' [How NASA Will Explore Asteroids (Gallery)]

Dubious destination

While the NRC study team did not undertake a technical assessment of the feasibility of an asteroid mission, it was informed by several briefers and sources that the current planned asteroid mission has significant shortcomings.

'A current stated interim goal of NASA's human spaceflight program is to visit an asteroid by 2025,' said Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the NRC committee that wrote the report.

'However, we've seen limited evidence that this has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA's own work force, by the nation as a whole, or by the international community. The lack of national consensus on NASA's most publicly visible human spaceflight goal along with budget uncertainty has undermined the agency's ability to guide program planning and allocate funding.' [NASA's 2013 Budget: What Will It Buy? (Video)]

The NRC report added that there appears to be continued enthusiasm for a mission to the moon but not for an asteroid mission, although there is both U.S. and international interest in robotic missions to asteroids.

But the view that a manned flight to a near-Earth object (NEO) is a dubious destination doesn't settle well in some quarters.

Bring the asteroid to the astronauts

'I agree with the findings in the NRC report that NASA has a long way to go to fulfill the Obama goal of an asteroid mission by 2025,' said former astronaut Tom Jones, author of the upcoming book, 'Mission: Asteroid.'

Jones told SPACE.com that NASA has not taken any major steps, starting with a search for near-Earth asteroid (NEA) targets, necessary to achieve that goal. The agency has so little money that it can't afford its own asteroid search program, relying instead on a private asteroid-hunting telescope commissioned by the B612 Foundation. NASA's Orion deep-space vehicle and large booster programs won't fly with a crew until after 2020, given current budgets and schedules, he said.

'The best way for NASA to reach both its asteroid goal and to launch humans into translunarspace - beyond the moon - is to use a robot spacecraft to retrieve and return to a safe lunar orbit a small, 500-ton asteroid,' Jones said. 'Near the Earth-moon L2 point, astronauts and robot probes can explore and dissect this asteroid for science and commercial-scale resources . water being the most valuable.'

Bringing the asteroid to the astronauts, Jones said - as described by the Keck Institute for Space Studies team in 2012 - 'could jump-start an entire industry between the Earth and the moon, using the energy and raw materials of space to enable everything from robotic probes to the planets, to eventual moon and Mars surface exploration,' he said.

Foundation of self-sustainability

'U.S. strategic goals for human space activity need to be long-term. We should have continuous operational reach in near-Earth space, regular access to the surface of the moon, and regular access to Mars,' said Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz. He is also the chair of NASA's Small Bodies Assessment Group.

'All of this requires building space-based infrastructure on a foundation of self-sustainability. Accessing and utilizing resources available on near-Earth objects, particularly water for fuel, life-support and shielding, is the cornerstone and is critical to achieving any of these goals,' Sykes told SPACE.com.

Sykes said it would make sense to send a piloted mission to oversee the automated emplacement and startup of a resource recovery facility on a near-Earth object.

'This could help guarantee the successful deployment of many untended facilities to other targets in the future by bringing what humans do best: dealing with the unexpected and improvisation,' Sykes said. 'In the meantime, great science could also be achieved, but this is strictly bonus.not a rationale.'

This could be done on the timescale envisioned by President Obama, Sykes said, with some initiative and little additional cost, and far less total cost than any other option.

Live off the (space) land

Existing Discovery mission proposals are on the table to fly a Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer-class spacecraft that would identify many NEO resource targets in orbits that would afford low-energy, short-duration missions, Sykes said.

Additionally, resource recovery experiments could be undertaken on the International Space Station using meteorite samples and other analog materials, Sykes said.

'Apollo taught us that doing something once or even a few times is no guarantee that it will ever be done again. If we want a permanent American presence in space, we need to learn to live off the land,' Sykes said.

'Near-Earth objects are our best opportunity to accomplish this cost-effectively,' he concluded.

Asteroids within reach

There's no lack of asteroids to focus upon, said Lindley Johnson, NEO Observations Program Executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Johnson noted that he doesn't speak for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) and not in a position to be able to say anything about the priorities for piloted/human spaceflight missions.

'I just know HEOMD has a great challenge to be able to build the basic capabilities needed for future human spaceflight with the budget prospects they've been given,' Johnson told SPACE.com.

'But we also know there are a lot of near-Earth asteroids out there between here and Mars and we still see them on the horizon for the future of exploration. Maybe somewhat beyond this next hill we must climb, but they are still out there for us to reach for,' Johnson said.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

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13 New Space Missions to Watch In 2013

This year has been a busy one for space missions, and it looks like next year will ramp things up even more.

Though NASA has retired its space shuttles, astronauts and cosmonauts are still launching regularly on Russian rockets to the International Space Station, and will continue to do so. Plus, China is planning another manned docking mission for 2013, and many more countries, such as South Korea, India, Canada and a coalition of European nations, will launch robotic science probes next year.

Here's a look at 13 notable launches to look out for in the coming year:

1) Suborbital Test Flights: With luck, 2013 will see a host of significant test flights for the private space companies developing manned suborbital vehicles to take paying passengers on brief joyrides to the edge of space. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has flown numerous glide tests, but it's due to make its first powered flight using its rocket engine sometime in 2013. Another company called XCOR Aerospace plans to test fly its Lynx suborbital vehicle next year. Both firms aim to carry their first passengers in 2014.

2) South Korea's Third Launch: South Korea will try for a third time to loft its Korea Space Launch Vehicle (KSLV) 1 booster successfully to orbit. Previous launch attempts in August 2009 and June 2010, which lifted off from a site in southern South Korea, both failed. But the third time might be a charm for South Korea, which will attempt to blast off a test satellite called the Science and Technology Satellite 2C (STSAT 2C). Launch is expected sometime in January 2013.

3) Indian/French SARAL/AltiKa: This satellite, a collaboration between India and France, is intended to study the surface height of Earth's seas from space. Called ocean altimetry, the research has many applications for environmental science and oceanography. The spacecraft is due to be launched Jan. 28 by an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which will also carry NEOSSat, an instrument designed to search for near-Earth asteroids that could pose a risk to our planet, and a Canadian space surveillance satellite called Sapphire. The mission will lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in India.

4) First Cygnus Flights: The private space company Orbital Sciences Corp. is one of two firms with a NASA contract to deliver cargo to the International Space Station on unmanned spacecraft (the other is SpaceX). In February, Orbital Sciences plans to launch its Antares rocket on its first test flight, which will carry a model of its robotic Cygnus spacecraft. The launch will blast off from the company's complex on Wallops Island in Virginia.

If the Antares test flight goes well, the first functional Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to fly on its initial test flight to the International Space Station April 5.

5) SpaceX Dragon Flights: Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), the other commercial spchinaace company hired by NASA to carry supplies to the space station, launched its Dragon cargo ship maiden test flight to the orbital laboratory last May. That successful flight was followed by SpaceX's first cargo delivery mission to the station in October.

The company, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, will continue to fly cargo delivery missions to the space station next year, with launches scheduled for March 1 and Sept. 30 out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. These flights are vital for keeping the space station fully stocked, and also help pave the way for the manned missions SpaceX hopes to launch aboard Dragon in coming years.

6) Space Station Crew Launches: Three launches of crewmembers to the International Space Station are planned for 2013, with liftoffs from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan scheduled for March 28, May 28, and Sept. 25. Each launch will carry three spaceflyers from the space station partner agencies - the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, and Europe - aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Crewmembers typically stay for five or six months each, and a rotating crew of three to six people is always onboard the orbiting laboratory.

7) Canada's Cassiope: The Canadian Space Agency's Cassiope (short for Cascade Smallsat and Ionospheric Polar Explorer) spacecraft is due to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California's Vandenberg Air Force Basesometime in April. The satellite will carry a suite of science instruments to study how solar storms interact with charged particles inEarth's ionosphere. The vehicle will also test out new communications technology. The flight is significant not just for Canada, but for SpaceX, which has never before launched from Vandenberg. Additionally, the launch will mark the first time a Falcon 9 will use the company's new in-house made Merlin 1D engines.

8) Space Station Cargo Launches: The next year will likely see numerous launches of cargo to the International Space Station aboard a suite of vehicles from Japan, Europe and Russia, in addition to the private cargo launches from SpaceX and Orbital Sciences. Russian Progress launches are scheduled for Feb. 12, April 24, and July 24, while Japan's HTV freighter will lift off July 15, and the European Space Agency's ATV is scheduled for a liftoff April 18. Each of these tried-and-true robotic spacecraft will deliver food, hardware and science experiments for the crew of the orbital outpost. [Photos: Space Station's Robotic Cargo Ship Fleet]

9) ESA's Space Swarm: The Swarm spacecraft, built by the European Space Agency, is due to launch into a polar orbit in April on a Eurockot Rockot rocket from Russia. The satellite will carry three instruments to study how Earth's geomagnetic field changes over time. The mission aims to offer insight into Earth's climate and interior composition.

10) NASA's Iris: NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (Iris) satellite is a sun-studying mission to analyze the flow of energy through our star's atmosphere and heliosphere. Iris is due to launch aboardan Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket, which takes off in midair after being lofted by a carrier plane from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The flight is scheduled for April 28 or 29.

11) China's Shenzhou 10: Scheduled for June, China's Shenzhou 10 mission will be the fifth manned spaceflight for China. The mission will take launch three Chinese astronauts, including a female spaceflyer, to dock with the nation's Tiangong 1 module in orbit. The flight is a follow-up to the historic Shenzhou 9 mission of June 2012, which marked the country's first manned space docking. The next launch will bring China a step closer to establishing a manned space station and potentially landing people on the moon. Shenzhou 10, like Shenzhou 9 before it, will lift off from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on a Long March 2F rocket. [Photos of China's Shenzhou 9 Mission]

12) NASA's Ladee: The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Experiment (Ladee) from NASA is a moon orbiter intended to study the moon's transient atmosphere and the ubiquitous particles of dust blanketing its surface that are often seen levitating due to electrostatic forces. Ladee is due to launch aboard a U.S. Air Force Minotaur 5 rocket from Wallops Island on Aug. 12.

13) NASA's Mars Maven: NASA's next Mars orbiter is due to launch sometime in a 20-day window between Nov. 18 and Dec. 7 to enable it to enter orbit around the Red Planet in September 2014. The Mars Atmosphere And Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft, or Maven for short, will study how Mars loses atmospheric gases to space. The mission will launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

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Japan Launching Ambitious Asteroid-Sampling Mission in 2014

Japan's space agency is readying a new asteroid probe for launch, an ambitious mission that aims to build on the victory of the country's first round-trip asteroid mission that sent the Hayabusa spacecraft to retrieve samples of the space rock Itokowa.

The new Japanese asteroid mission, called Hayabusa2, is scheduled for launch in 2014 and aimed at the asteroid 1999 JU3, a large space rock about 3,018 feet (920 meters) in length. It is due to arrive at the asteroid in mid-2018, loiter at the space rock and carry out a slew of challenging firsts before departing the scene at the end of 2019.

If all goes well, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft will return to Earth with samples of asteroid 1999 JU3 at the end of 2020. The probe's name is Japanese for 'Falcon2.'

Building on success

Officials with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said Hayabusa2, like its Hayabusa predecessor, will also involve a significant level of international cooperation. The initial Hayabusa mission launched in May 2003 and returned samples of Itokawa - the first asteroid samples ever collected in space - in June 2010. [Japan Returns 1st Asteroid Samples to Earth (Photos)]

Like that first flight, the Hayabusa2 mission will rely on NASA's Deep Space Network of ground stations to help track the spacecraft. The spacecraft's return capsule will also land in Australia, another similarity to the first flight.

Hayabusa2 is expected to stay with asteroid 1999 JU3 for more than a year, 18 months in all, thereby allowing ample time for observation and careful sample collection, according to the mission's project manager Makoto Yoshikawa of Japan's the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS).

Asteroid 1999 JU3 is of particular interest to researchers because it consists of 4.5-billion-year-old material that has been altered very little. Measurements taken from Earth suggest that the asteroid's rock may have come into contact with water.

The C-type asteroid is expected to contain organic and hydrated minerals, making it different from Itokawa, which was a rocky S-type asteroid. Asteroid 1999 JU3 is also larger than Itokawa, which was 1,771 (540 m) long.

New and novel hardware

While the configuration of Hayabusa2 is similar to that of the first Hayabusa, the second probe will carry new and novel asteroid-studying hardware.

For example, the antenna for Hayabusa was a single parabolic dish, but Hayabusa2 will sport two flat high-gain antennas to support faster communication speeds than its predecessor. Also, Hayabusa2 is to will fly through space with more propulsion power from its ion engines. [How Japan's 1st Asteroid Probe Worked (Infographic)]

Another addition is a 4-pound (2 kilograms) 'collision device' that will be used to create an artificial crater on asteroid 1999 JU3 during the mission. This human-caused dent is expected to be a small one, a few meters in diameter. But it will allow Hayabusa2 to acquire samples of the asteroid that are exposed by the smashing event, fresh specimens that are less weathered by the brutal space environment on the asteroid's surface.

Yoshikawa noted that during the first Hayabusa mission, the probe's MIcro/Nano Experimental Robot Vehicle for Asteroid (MINERVA) failed to reach the surface of Itokawa. 'So for Hayabusa2 we have even greater motivation to succeed with our new version of the robot, MINERVA2.'

Hayabusa2's MASCOT hitchhiker

For its part, the German Aerospace Center's (DLR) Institute of Space Systems in Bremen is contributing the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout asteroid lander, or Mascot, to the JAXA mission. Mascot is being developed by DLR in collaboration with the French space agency and JAXA.

After Hayabusa2 arrives at asteroid 1999 JU3 in 2018, Mascot will be released from the main spacecraft. A spring-loaded mechanism will push the 22-pound (10 kilograms) lander clear of from Hayabusa2.

Mascot is a 'hopping' lander packed with four separate instruments and is designed to move across the surface of an asteroid. Doing so will enable it to take measurements at different sites. As Mascot performs the near-asteroid maneuvers, a radiometer will measure the temperature of the asteroid and a camera will image the fine structure of the surface of 1999 JU3.

The lander will be controlled from DLR's Microgravity User Support Center in Cologne.

Free-falling on an asteroid

'Mascot will free-fall to the asteroid from an altitude of around 100 meters [328 feet],' said Tra-Mi Ho, DLR's project leader for the device, in a statement. Sensors will then ensure that Mascot knows which way is up and down, so it can orient itself and, if necessary, correct its attitude.

Once on the asteroid, Mascot is expected to automatically adjust itself and 'hop' from one measurement site to the next.

'Mascot is due to take measurements of the regolith itself, which will provide reference data about the surface and enable the samples subsequently brought back by Hayabusa2 to be interpreted in the correct context,' said Ralf Jaumann, a DLR planetary researcher and scientific spokesman for the experiments on the lander.

Mascot will work on the asteroid for a total of 16 hours, the equivalent of two days on asteroid 1999 JU3.

Up close with an asteroid

'We anticipate obtaining close-up photographs of the asteroid surface up to the order of centimeter-level resolution, something that Hayabusa1 was unable to capture," said Masanao Abe, Hayabusa2 project scientist at ISAS.

The experience gained from that first Hayabusa mission, in terms of asteroid sample collection and analysis technologies, is proving highly useful, Abe said.

'Japan is at the forefront of sample-return technology and execution,' Abe added 'and we are constantly thinking about how we can maintain our position and steadily working on things that will keep us at the leading edge.'

New discoveries ahead

Akio Fujimura, an advisor in JAXA's Lunar and Planetary Exploration Program Group, said that in Hayabusa2's snagging of carbonaceous asteroid material, there is a high probability of gaining samples that contain organic matter - the fundamental building blocks of life.

'So, first, I expect Hayabusa2 to be a success. Then after that, I'd like us to proceed with an inquiry concerning where we came from and how life came about,' Fujimura said. 'It would be great to uncover the origins of the solar system, Earth, the other planets, and life itself by getting information that we can't obtain here on Earth. I'd like us to open up new lines of scientific inquiry that seek to discover these origins.'

JAXA and the ISAS has learned a great deal from the first Hayabusa mission, said Michael Zolensky, a Hayabusa team member in sample analysis at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

'Although the second spacecraft is based on the first one, they have made significant upgrades and expanded the capabilities of the spacecraft for Hayabusa2,' Zolensky told SPACE.com. 'It should be a fantastic mission. No fooling.'

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is the 2011 winner of the National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Incredible NASA Photos Show Saturn's Rings and Clouds

NASA has unveiled amazing new views of the planet Saturn showcasing the ringed wonder's moons, rings and turbulent atmosphere as seen by the Cassini spacecraft.

The first photo, which NASA released on Christmas Eve (Dec. 24), clearly shows Saturn's south pole and distinctive rings. But the image also holds a few surprises.

The shadow of Saturn's moon Mimas appears in the photo as a small, oblique dark spot slightly to the left and above the planet's south pole. Mimas is perhaps best known for a huge crater that dominates one of its hemispheres, leading some 'Star Wars' fans to compare its look to the 'Death Star.'

Cassini also captured Janus, another of the more than 60 known moons of Saturn, in the top left section of the image. The small satellite is difficult to spot, but appears as a tiny white dot just over the planet's north pole. While NASA released the photo of Saturn, Mimas and Janus this week, Cassini actually snapped the image in August. Since then, mission scientists processed and polished the image to highlight its features. [Amazing Photos of Saturn's Rings]

A second Saturn photo, a raw, unprocessed view released Wednesday (Dec. 26), shows Saturn's turbulent surface in extreme detail. Violent storms churning among Saturn's cloud tops appear as delicate whorls and swirls.

Both of the new Saturn photos were taken with Cassini's wide-angle camera, but they represent two different ways NASA handles space images. The first photo of Saturn, Janus and Mimas was refined to bring out the most interesting aspects of the photos. For example, Janus was barely visible in the original, raw image, so image specialists opted to brighten the small moon in the final, refined image.

The second image is part of a larger database of raw images that NASA releases online soon after they are sent to Earth by Cassini. Like the first photo, this somewhat foggy depiction of Saturn's surface will eventually be treated to bring out its most stunning aspects.

The Cassini spacecraft has logged more than 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion km) since its launch with the Huygens lander in 1997. Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004 and dropped European-built Huygens onto the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. The Cassini- Huygens mission is a joint project of NASA, the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.

During its time in space, Cassini has taken more than 300,000 images of the Saturn and its moons. The spacecraft is currently in an extended phase of its mission that runs through 2017.

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Road trip on tap for NASA's Mars rover in new year

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Since captivating the world with its acrobatic landing, the Mars rover Curiosity has fallen into a rhythm: Drive, snap pictures, zap at boulders, scoop up dirt. Repeat.

Topping its to-do list in the new year: Set off toward a Martian mountain - a trek that will take up a good chunk of the year.

The original itinerary called for starting the drive before the Times Square ball drop, but Curiosity lingered longer than planned at a pit stop, delaying the trip.

Curiosity will now head for Mount Sharp in mid-February after it drills into its first rock.

'We'll probably be ready to hit the pedal to the metal and give the keys back to the rover drivers,' mission chief scientist John Grotzinger said in a recent interview at his office on the sprawling NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory campus 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

The road trip comes amid great expectations. After all, it's the reason the $2.5 billion mission targeted Gale Crater near the Martian equator. Soaring from the center of the ancient crater is a 3-mile-high peak with intriguing layers of rocks.

Curiosity's job is to figure out whether the landing site ever had the right environmental conditions to support microbes. Scientists already know water flowed in the past thanks to the rover's discovery of an old streambed. Besides water, life as we know it also needs energy, the sun.

What's missing are the chemical building blocks of life: complex carbon-based molecules. If they're preserved on Mars, scientists figure the best place to hunt for them is at the base of Mount Sharp where images from space reveal hints of interesting geology.

It's a six-month journey if Curiosity drives nonstop. But since scientists will want to command the six-wheel rover to rest and examine rocky outcrops along the way, it'll turn into a nine-month odyssey.

Before Curiosity can tackle a mountain, there's unfinished business to tend to. After spending the holiday taking measurements of the Martian atmosphere, Curiosity gears up for the first task of the new year: Finding the perfect rock to bore into.

The exercise - from picking a rock to drilling to deciphering its chemical makeup - is expected to last more than a month.

'We have promised everybody that we're going to go slowly,' said Grotzinger, a geologist at the California Institute of Technology.

Curiosity's low-key adventures thus far are in contrast to the drama-filled touchdown that entranced the world in August. Since the car-size rover was too heavy to land using a parachute and airbags, engineers invented a daring new way that involved lowering it to the surface by cables. The risky arrival proved so successful and popular that NASA is planning an encore in 2020.

Curiosity joined another NASA rover, Opportunity, which has been exploring the Martian southern hemisphere since 2004. Opportunity's twin, Spirit, stopped communicating in 2010.

After nailing the landing, Curiosity fell into a routine. The first month was dominated by health checkups - a tedious but essential prerequisite before driving. A chemistry laboratory on wheels, it's the most high-tech spacecraft to land on another planet so extra care was taken to ensure its tools, including its rock-zapping laser and robotic arm, worked.

Once it got the green light, it trundled to a waypoint that's home to three unique types of terrain to perform science experiments. Every time Curiosity roves, it leaves Morse code tracks in the soil, providing a visual signal between drives. The message spells out JPL, short for Jet Propulsion Lab, which built the rover.

So far, its odometer has logged less than a mile. Despite the slow going, scientists have been smitten with the postcards it beamed home, including a stylish self-portrait and tantalizing glimpses of Mount Sharp.

Huge expectations weigh on the mission with NASA balancing the need to feed the public's appetite while pursuing discoveries at its own pace. Last month, the space agency quashed Internet speculation that Curiosity had detected complex carbon compounds in a pinch of Martian soil by issuing a statement ahead of a science meeting where the team was due to present the latest findings.

American University space policy professor Howard McCurdy said Curiosity is currently in a transition, caught between the viral landing and the scientific payoff expected at Mount Sharp.

'It is interesting, but slow,' he said in an email. 'I expect public interest will rise as the rover gets closer to its destination.'

Curiosity's prime mission lasts two years, but NASA expects the plutonium-powered rover to live far longer. A priority for its human handlers is to learn to operate it more efficiently so that it becomes second nature. Before heading to Mount Sharp, engineers plan a software update to Curiosity's computers to fix remaining bugs.

'We'll need to be pretty careful,' project manager Richard Cook said of the upcoming drive. 'We may find terrain that we're not comfortable driving in and we'll have to spend time driving around stuff.'

___

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Friday, December 28, 2012

Say Cheese! Mars Rover Curiosity Snaps Amazing Self-Portrait

NASA has snapped its most amazing self-portrait yet of the Curiosity rover on Mars, showing the robot posing with its ultimate destination: a huge Martian mountain.

The new view of Curiosity on Mars is actually a mosaic of dozens of high-definition color photos taken by the rover between Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. The image shows Curiosity surrounded by the tracks of its wheels, with the 3-mile-high (5 kilometers) Mount Sharp rising into the sky in the distance.

NASA featured the latest Curiosity portrait as its image of the day Thursday (Dec. 27) after releasing the photo earlier this month.

The prominent Mount Sharp is the central peak of Curiosity's vast Gale Crater landing site. Another mountain in the image, on the rover's left, makes up the northern wall of the expansive crater.

To create the eye-popping Mars photo, Curiosity used its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), a powerful camera mounted at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Curiosity turned the camera on itself much like a human tourist might when traveling alone, snapping a series of photos that rover team members then stitched together into a high-definition composite view.

The rover had to move its robotic arm through more than 50 positions in a single day to capture its entire car-size body on camera. NASA scientists used a test version of Curiosity on Earth to practice the Martian photo session.

NASA unveiled an earlier version of Curiosity portrait, composed out of 55 separate images, in early November, but the latest view includes significantly more detail and a wider view.

The Mars rover Curiosity is headed toward a spot near the base of Mount Sharp called Glenelg, and will continue to perform experiments along the way. The $2.5 billion rover's primary mission is to determine if its Gale crater landing site could have ever supported primitive microbial life.

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Full Moon Tonight: Facts About 2012's Last Lunar Show

The final full moon of the year rises tonight to cap a year of amazing lunar sky shows. While the bright moon will easily outshine other celestial objects, there is more than meets the eye to Earth's nearest neighbor.

The December full moon is also called the 'long-night's moon' since it is the closest full moon to the northern winter solstice (when the nights are longest). And indeed tonight's full moon will be visible for the longest amount of time.

From New York for instance, moonrise on Thursday (Dec. 27) occurred at 4:17 p.m. EST and the moon sets at 7:12 a.m. this morning. So the full moon will indeed be in the sky for a long time: 14 hours and 55 minutes.

Moon-watching myth

Contrary to popular belief, the full moon not the best time to observe the moon with binoculars or a telescope.

Normally, even with just small optical power we can see a wealth of detail on its surface. But during the full moon phase, the moon appears flat and one-dimensional, as well as dazzlingly bright to the eye.

It is only later in the weekend and into next week that the moon's best features will stand out. As the moon wanes to its gibbous phase, and then to last quarter, those lunar features close to the terminator -the variable line between the sunlit and darkened portions of the moon - will appear to stand out in sharp, clear relief. [Amazing Moon Photos of 2012]

The moon will arrive at last quarter phase on Friday, Jan. 4 at 11:58 p.m. EST, when its disk will be exactly 50 percent illuminated.

How bright, the full moon?

How does the moon's brightness compare at that moment with when it's full? Most people may believe the moon is half as bright, but in reality astronomers say that the last quarter moon is only 1/11th as bright as full. This is because the moon is not a smooth sphere, but has a myriad of craters, mountains and valleys which cast long, distinct shadows across the lunar landscape.

Interestingly, a first quarter moon is actually slightly brighter than a last quarter moon, because at first quarter the illuminated half of the moon displays less of the dark surface features known as the 'maria' (pronounced m?r-r?a) popularly referred to as lunar 'seas.'

And believe or not, it isn't until just 2.4 days before or after full that the moon actually becomes half as bright as full!

Lunar cycles

Here are some interesting lunar calendar facts that the famed Belgian astronomical calculator Jean Meeus has compiled concerning the phases of the moon:

All are cyclical, the most noteworthy being the so-called Metonic Cycle that was independently discovered by the Greek astronomer Meton (born about 460 B.C.). This is a 19-year cycle, after which time the phases of the moon are repeated on the same days of the year, or approximately so.

Take, for instance, Friday's full moon. Nineteen years from now, in 2031, there'll be another full moon on Dec.28.

Another moon cycle fact: After 2 years, the preceding lunar phase occurs on or very nearly the same calendar date. So in 2014, it will be the first quarter moon that occurs on Dec. 28.

After 8 years, the same lunar phases repeat, but occurring one or two days later in the year. Ancient Greek astronomers called this 8-year cycle the 'octaeteris.' Indeed, in 2020, a full moon occurs on Dec. 29.

Finally, in our Gregorian Calendar, 372 years provides an excellent long period cycle for the recurrence of a particular phase on a given date. Therefore, we know with absolute certainty that the same full moon that shines down on us on Dec. 28 of 2012 will also be shining on Dec. 28 in the year 2384.

So mark your lunar calendars and enjoy tonight's lunar display!

If you snap an amazing photo of the year's final full moon on Friday and would like to share it with SPACE.com for a potential story or gallery, submit photos and comments, including your name and location to managing editor Tariq Malik at: spacephotos@space.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New YorkTimes and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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NASA Unveils E-books on Hubble, Webb Space Telescopes

NASA has just released two free e-books about the Hubble Space Telescope and its not-yet-launched successor, with interactive features that let readers watch a galaxy collision or manipulate a telescope model between pages, agency officials say.

The Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990 and has a mission lifetime through at least 2013. The space-based observatory has supplied some of the most dazzling visible-light images of distant cosmic objects, which are featured in 'Hubble Space Telescope: Discoveries.'

The James Webb Space Telescope, which will be almost three times the size of Hubble, has been designed to work best at infrared wavelengths in order to study the very distant universe, looking for the first stars and galaxies that ever emerged. The e-book, 'Webb Space Telescope: Science Guide,' explains the technology behind the mission, which is slated to launch in 2018.

'These new e-books from NASA will allow people to discover Hubble and Webb in a whole new way - both the science and the technology behind building them,' Amber Straughn, an astrophysicist on the Webb telescope project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement. 'They collect all of the amazing resources about these two observatories in an excellent product that I think people will really enjoy.'

The e-books are available at the Apple iBookstore or can be downloaded as a PDF here: http://hubblesite.org/ibooks/

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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Mars Rover Curiosity Spends Holidays at 'Grandma's House'

NASA's Curiosity rover worked through the holiday season on Mars by taking a close look at an intriguing bit of Martian terrain, a region scientists have lovingly nicknamed 'Grandma's House.'

The Curiosity rover is currently parked inside Yellowknife Bay, a shallow depression of odd terrain nestled inside the rover's vast Gale crater landing site. 'Grandma's House' is an informal name for Curiosity's holiday spot inside the bay, rover team member Colette Lohr said in a NASA video.

'This is a really exciting time for the team because we've started to do what we call discovery-driven planning,' said Lohr, Curiosity tactical uplink lead at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. 'And this is, in a sense, when we hand the rover keys to the science team.'

Curiosity's handlers spent two days preloading the rover with instructions for science observations over 11 Martian days (or sols), which allowed rover team members to spend the year-end holidays with their families and friends.

The rover didn't get much of a vacation. It spent Christmas and Christmas Eve recording a 360-degree panoramic view of Yellowknife Bay that should give researchers an even clearer view of the area, Lohr said.

Yellowknife Bay, a 2-foot-deep (half-meter) basin, is an interesting spot for Mars scientists because the area contains terrain unlike any yet seen by the Curiosity rover. Mission scientists are studying rock targets in the region in order to pick one for Curiosity to drill inside.

Curiosity has been studying the region using its mast-mounted cameras and laser, but the ultimate goal is the first trial of the rover's percussive drill. The instrument is designed to drill inside a rock and collect the powdery rock sample from the interior so it can be analyzed by other onboard tools - something never-before attempted on Mars, NASA officials said. The drilling test is set for early in 2013.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity landed on Mars on Aug. 5 to begin exploring the Red Planet. The $2.5 billion rover's primary mission is to determine if its Gale crater landing site could have ever supported primitive microbial life.

Curiosity is currently driving toward a spot called Glenelg near the base of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile (5 kilometers) mountain that rises up from the center of its Gale crater landing site.

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter @mirikramer or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

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Astronaut Records 1st Original Song on Space Station

Call him the space guitar hero: An astronaut living in orbit has penned a musical ode to Earth in what he's billing as the first original song recorded on the International Space Station.

The song, called 'Jewel in the Night,' is a holiday-themed tune recorded by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield just days after arriving at the space station last week, just in time for Christmas.

Hadfield and two crewmates docked at the space station on Friday, Dec. 21. On Sunday (Dec. 23), he recorded the tune and then posted it online on Christmas Eve (Dec. 24) via YouTube, Twitter and soundcloud.com.

'Here's some of the first original music written for and performed on the international space station,' Hadfield wrote on Twitter, where he is chronicling his spaceflight under the name @Cmdr_Hadfield. [Hear the Song: 'Jewel in the Night' Video]

Hadfield performed 'Jewel in the Night' on Larrivée Parlor acoustic guitar (made in Vancouver) that has been aboard the space station for years. The tune has a folk song feel and starts off:

So bright,
Jewel in the night,
There in my window below.

So bright,
Dark as the night,
with all of our cities aglow.

It's long been our way,
To honor this day,
And offer goodwill to men.

And though,
Where ever we go,
It's come round to Christmas again.

Hadfield, 53, is a veteran astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency and currently serves as a flight engineer with the station's current Expedition 34 crew. He will be the first Canadian space station commander when he takes charge of the outpost's Expedition 35 phase next year.

Music has a special place in Hadfield's heart and is among his passions. Before launch, he had a special guitar pick made to resemble his Expedition 35 mission patch.

'I play guitar in a couple bands and sing. I've fronted bands here in Houston for 20 years, and it's just a natural extension for me to play music no matter where I am, whether it's at Star City or Tsukuba, Japan, or on board the space station; I played guitar on board Mir when I was there back in 1995,' Hadfield said in a preflight NASA interview. 'I thought, since I'm there long enough; why not write music about the experience of traveling in space.'

Hadfield said that early pioneers, sailors and miners all created songs about the exploration of new frontiers on Earth. So it is only natural for the tradition to continue as humanity expands into the cosmos.

Since arriving at the International Space Station this month, Hadfield has posted several photos of the guitar he is using and himself playing music in space. On Christmas Day, he strummed the guitar as his five Expedition 34 crewmates (two Americans and three Russians) serenaded Mission Control flight controllers with traditional Christmas carols.

'I'm not by any means the world's best musician, but I love it and I've had lots of people to play music with,' said Hadfield, who will return to Earth in May 2013. 'To be able to do that on space station is fairly new in the human experience and I want to make the most of it.'

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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First 'Alien Earth' Will Be Found in 2013, Experts Say

The first truly Earth-like alien planet is likely to be spotted next year, an epic discovery that would cause humanity to reassess its place in the universe.

While astronomers have found a number of exoplanets over the last few years that share one or two key traits with our own world - such as size or inferred surface temperature - they have yet to bag a bona fide 'alien Earth.' But that should change in 2013, scientists say.

'I'm very positive that the first Earth twin will be discovered next year,' said Abel Mendez, who runs the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.

Planets piling up

Astronomers discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star in 1995. Since they, they've spotted more than 800 worlds beyond our own solar system, and many more candidates await confirmation by follow-up observations. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]

NASA's prolific Kepler Space Telescope, for example, has flagged more than 2,300 potential planets since its March 2009 launch. Only 100 or so have been confirmed to date, but mission scientists estimate that at least 80 percent will end up being the real deal.

The first exoplanet finds were scorching-hot Jupiter-like worlds that orbit close to their parent stars, because they were the easiest to detect. But over time, new instruments came online and planet hunters honed their techniques, enabling the discovery of smaller and more distantly orbiting planets - places more like Earth.

Last December, for instance, Kepler found a planet 2.4 times larger than Earth orbiting in its star's habitable zone - that just-right range of distances where liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, can exist.

The Kepler team and other research groups have detected several other worlds like that one (which is known as Kepler-22b), bringing the current tally of potentially habitable exoplanets to nine by Mendez' reckoning.

Zeroing in on Earth's twin

None of the worlds in Mendez' Habitable Exoplanets Catalog are small enough to be true Earth twins. The handful of Earth-size planets spotted to date all orbit too close to their stars to be suitable for life. [Gallery: 9 Potentially Habitable Exoplanets]

But it's only a matter of time before a small, rocky planet is spotted in the habitable zone - and Mendez isn't the only researcher who thinks that time is coming soon.

'The first planet with a measured size, orbit and incident stellar flux that is suitable for life is likely to be announced in 2013,' said Geoff Marcy, a veteran planet hunter at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the Kepler team.

Mendez and Marcy both think this watershed find will be made by Kepler, which spots planets by flagging the telltale brightness dips caused when they pass in front of their parent stars from the instrument's perspective.

Kepler needs to witness three of these'transits' to detect a planet, so its early discoveries were tilted toward close-orbiting worlds (which transit more frequently). But over time, the telescope has been spotting more and more distantly orbiting planets - including some in the habitable zone.

An instrument called HARPS (short for High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) is also a top contender, having already spotted a number of potentially habitable worlds. HARPS, which sits on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile, allows researchers to detect the tiny gravitational wobbles that orbiting planets induce in their parent stars.

'HARPS should be able to find the most interesting and closer Earth twins,' Mendez told SPACE.com via email, noting that many Kepler planets are too far away to characterize in detail. 'A combination of its sensitivity and long-term observations is now paying off.'

And there are probably many alien Earths out there to be found in our Milky Way galaxy, researchers say.

'Estimating carefully, there are 200 billion stars that host at least 50 billion planets, if not more,' Mikko Tuomi, of the University of Hertfordshire in England, told SPACE.com via email.

'Assuming that 1:10,000 are similar to the Earth would give us 5,000,000 such planets,' added Tuomi, who led teams reporting the discovery of several potentially habitable planet candidates this year, including an exoplanet orbiting the star Tau Ceti just 11.9 light-years from Earth. 'So I would say we are talking about at least thousands of such planets.'

What it would mean

Whenever the first Earth twin is confirmed, the discovery will likely have a profound effect on humanity.

'We humans will look up into the night sky, much as we gaze across a large ocean,' Marcy told SPACE.com via email. 'We will know that the cosmic ocean contains islands and continents by the billions, able to support both primitive life and entire civilizations.'

Marcy hopes such a find will prod our species to take its first real steps beyond its native solar system.

'Humanity will close its collective eyes, and set sail for Alpha Centauri,' Marcy said, referring to the closest star system to our own, where an Earth-size planet was discovered earlier this year.

'The small steps for humanity will be a giant leap for our species. Sending robotic probes to the nearest stars will constitute the greatest adventure we Homo sapiens have ever attempted,' Marcy added. 'This massive undertaking will require the cooperation and contribution from all major nations around world. In so doing, we will take our first tentative steps into the cosmic ocean and enhance our shared sense of purpose on this terrestrial shore.'

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Longest-Running Earth Observation Satellite to Retire

After documenting the changing face of our planet since 1984, the longest-running Earth-observing satellite, Landsat 5, will retire soon, the U.S. Geological Survey has announced.

The satellite, which will be retired in the next few months, has long outlived its initial three-year mission. It has circled Earth more than 150,000 times during its nearly 29 years in space, and has snapped more than 2.5 million images of the planet's surface along the way. Throughout its prolific career, Landsat 5 has captured images of the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Chernobyl disaster, the expansion of sprawl around cities like Las Vegas, deforestation in Mexico, and even crowds descending on the U.S. capital to witness President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration.

'Any major event since 1984 that left a mark on this Earth larger than a football field was likely recorded by Landsat 5, whether it was a hurricane, a tsunami, a wildfire, deforestation, or an oil spill,' USGS Director Marcia McNutt said in a statement. 'We look forward to a long and productive continuation of the Landsat program, but it is unlikely there will ever be another satellite that matches the outstanding longevity of Landsat 5.'

The first series of maneuvers to safely lower Landsat 5 from its operational orbit is expected to occur next month, according to USGS officials.

This year marked the 40th anniversary of the entire Landsat program, which is a collaboration by NASA and the USGS, an agency of the Interior department. Besides Landsat 5, the only other currently operational craft from the program is Landsat 7, which launched in 1999 and has also outlived its three-year design. [Photos: Landsat's Best 'Earth as Art' Images]

With one mission ending, another is about to begin. NASA is scheduled to blast Landsat 8 - also called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) - into orbit on the back of an Atlas 5 rocket in February 2013. The new satellite arrived at its launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California last week, NASA officials said.

LDCM has two instruments. One is the Operational Land Imager, which will collect data in visible, near infrared and shortwave infrared wavelengths. It will also conduct observations in two new spectral bands - one designed to help coastal waters, the other to detect hard-to-see cirrus clouds, according to NASA officials. The other instrument is the Thermal Infrared Sensor, intended to measure the temperature of the Earth's surface.

'Both of these instruments have evolutionary advances that make them the most advanced Landsat instruments to date and are designed to improve performance and reliability to improve observations of the global land surface,' Ken Schwer, LDCM project manager at NASA Goddard, said in statement.

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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Experimental Private Rocket Makes Highest Test Hop Yet

A privately built rocket prototype that could lead to a completely reusable spaceflight system has passed its biggest test yet - a 12-story hop and smooth landing.

The experimental reusable rocket, called the Grasshopper, made its highest and longest flight yet on Dec. 17, marking the prototype's third successful test by the private spaceflight company SpaceX.

In the latest test at SpaceX's proving grounds in MacGregor, Texas, the Grasshopper rocket flew for 29 seconds and reached a height of more than 130 feet (40 meters). A video of the Grasshopper test flight shows the rocket soaring up into the Texas sky, then smoothly descending to land on four spindly legs.

In mid-November, the Grasshopper rocket flew nearly two stories (17.7 feet or 5.4 meters) up during its second test flight. The rocket's debut flight in September flew 6 feet (1.8 meters) into the air before landing. So far, all of the prototype's tests have been successful.

With Grasshopper, SpaceX is trying to solve a long-standing challenge with spaceflight: cost. Because today's rockets aren't completely reusable, they act as expensive, one-use machines. Companies are now trying to develop rockets that can both launch from and land on Earth intact, in order to be flown again on future missions.

Grasshopper stands at 10 stories tall (108 feet, 32.9 meters) and houses the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, the same rocket that launched the Dragon capsule to the International Space Station earlier this year. A Merlin 1D engine and a steel support structure round out the Grasshopper's unique design.

The rocket takes off like a typical vertically launched rocket, but its landing method makes it unique. Grasshopper has four steel, springy legs to support its weight, allowing it to gently land in the same way it takes off.

A rocket has never successfully landed intact after being launch to space. While NASA's space shuttles were reusable after launch, the huge 15-story external tanks that helped them reach orbit were not recycled.

SpaceX ultimately envisions using three recyclable components for future space travel: a rocket second stage, a rocket first stage, and a cone-shaped capsule.

While most rockets today land in the ocean after reaching space, a land-based landing is preferred for this hardware. Brackish seawater can cause unnecessary damage to otherwise reusable pieces of a rocket. Each piece of the rocket will land separately so that they can be collected for later use. The two rocket stages' landings will be aided by their engines and the capsule's descent should be cushioned by a parachute.

SpaceX is planning more sophisticated, even higher hops for Grasshopper in the coming months, company officials said.

The Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX is one of several companies developing new vehicles for private space travel. The company is one of two firms with NASA contracts to provide unmanned cargo deliveries to the International Space Station. SpaceX's $1.6 billion deal with NASA calls for 12 cargo missions to the space station using the company's unmanned Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rockets.

SpaceX is also developing a manned version of its Dragon capsule and is one of several firms competing for NASA contracts to ferry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit.

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter @mirikramer or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

NASA Launches Telescope-Toting Balloon from Antarctica on Christmas

A giant helium balloon is slowly drifting above Antarctica, about 22 miles (36 kilometers) up. Launched on Tuesday (Dec. 25) from the National Science Foundation's Long Duration Balloon (LDB) facility on Earth's southernmost continent, it carries a sensitive telescope that measures submillimeter light waves from stellar nurseries in our Milky Way.

'Christmas launch!' wrote officials with NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, which oversees the agency's balloon research program, in a Twitter post yesterday. 'BLAST launched today from McMurdo Station, Antarctica.'

This is the fifth and final mission for BLAST, short for the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope, and mission designers hope it will reveal why so few stars are born in our galaxy.

On Dec. 12, BLAST was still in one of the two giant Payload Assembly Buildings at the LDB facility, a short distance from the U.S. research center McMurdo Station. Principal investigator Mark Devlin of the University of Pennsylvania and a group of graduate students were mounting a giant sunshade on the telescope, to ensure that the ultra-cold detectors won't heat up during the flight.

'The detectors are cooled to 0.3 degrees aboven absolute zero, using liquid helium,' said Devlin. 'If they were any warmer, they wouldn't be able to register the faint submillimeter radiation of cold interstellar dust clouds at just 30 degrees above absolute zero.'

Star mystery

After test flights in 2003 in New Mexico and in 2005 in Sweden, BLAST's third flight, in 2006 from Antarctica, was a 'mind-boggling' success, Devlin said. The instrument revealed beyond doubt that in most distant galaxies, new stars are born at a prolific rate. By measuring the star formation rate in galaxies more than 7 billion light-years away, the researchers determined that over half of the stars in the uuniverse were born within the first 5 billion years after the Big Bang.

'But there's an unsolved problem,' added co-principal investifator Barth Netterfield of the University of Toronto, Canada, who was assisting the BLAST team with the launch preparations. 'BLAST found lots of so-called dark cores in our own Milky Way - dense clouds of cold dust that are supposed to be stars-in-the-making. Based on the number of dark cores, you would expect our galaxy to spawn dozens of new stars each year on average. Yet, the galactic star formation rate is only some four solar masses per year.'

So why is the stellar birth rate in our Milky Way so low? Astronomers can think of two ways in which a dense cloud of dust is prevented from further contracting into a star: turbulence in the dust, or the collapse-impeding effects of magnetic fields. On its new mission, BLAST should find out which process is to blame. [Images: Life at Antarctica's Concordia Station]

The idea is straightforward: magnetic fields tend to align electrically charged, elongated dust particles. If dust particles have a preferred orientation, they will slightly polarize the submillimeter radiation from the cloud. Using polarimeters, BLAST can detect if the radiation is indeed polarized, and if it is, determine the direction of the magnetic field. 'If there's no polarization present,' said Netterfield, 'turbulence must be the reason' why so few dark cores collapse into new stars.

Final mission?

In 2010, on its fourth mission, BLAST was already equipped with polarimeters. However, accdording to Devlin, 'that flight did not do so well because of a melted filter. We have some data, but we know we can do better.'

Luckily, repeating a balloon-borne experiment is much easier and much cheaper than re-launching a scientific satellite. After each flight, most of the payload is recovered and can be used again. In particular, the BLAST camera with its sensitive and expensive detectors has been recovered every single time.

BLAST's fifth flight will probably last between 12 and 14 days. While Devlin, Netterfield and their colleagues are celebrating Christmans and New Year's Eve, the 4,000-pound (1800 kilograms) stratospheric telescope will observe selected star-forming regions in the constellations Vela and Lupus.

And if senior graduate student Tristan Matthews of Northwestern University Illinois has his way, this may not be BLAST's final mission after all. Depending on the results and the recovery success of the current flight, Matthews hopes to fly BLAST in its present configuration for a sixth time, in the Arctic. 'That would give us access to a well-studied and nearby star-forming region in Taurus,' he said.

Meanwhile, Devlin has received a $5 million grant from NASA over a period of five years to develop a larger version of BLAST, with a 2.5-meter mirror, as compared to the current 1.8-meter aperture. That would vastly increase the number of stellar nurseries that could be studied. 'We could fly SuperBLAST in 2016 or so,' he said.

Dutch astronomy writer Govert Schilling visited McMurdo Station and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station as a selected member of the U.S. National Science Foundation's 2012/2013 media visit program. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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