Space and Astronomy News: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Newly Opened Space Shuttle Endeavour Exhibit Thrills California Crowds

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Amidst much fanfare, the new museum display featuring retired space shuttle Endeavour opened to the media and invited guests here on Wednesday (Oct. 30).

Groups of children from museum-partnered elementary schools were in attendance alongside reporters and invited guests at the new Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion at Los Angeles' California Science Center.

The opening ceremonies were befitting of the orbiter's return to Southern California, where it was built back in the 1980s.

Endeavour arrived at the museum Oct. 14, after being flown from Florida to Los Angeles atop a jumbo jet, and then rolled through city streets from the airport to the museum. [Photos: Shuttle Endeavour's Street Parade]

Temporary housing

The orbiter is being temporarily housed in a metal hangar building connected to the main California Science Center museum. A new, much larger building will be completed nearby within a few years, and will feature the shuttle in vertical configuration, complete with solid rocket boosters and an external tank mock-up. This will make Endeavour the only retired shuttle to be displayed in 'launch mode.'

Endeavour's sibling shuttle orbiters, Discovery and Atlantis, will spend their retirement at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum outside Washington, D.C., and the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center in Florida, respectively, while the prototype shuttle Enterprise is on display at New York City's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

Endeavour's opening ceremony began Wednesday with Bill Nye, former TV host and current CEO of The Planetary Society, introducing featured speakers.

After opening remarks, the Grammy Award-winning singer James Ingram delivered a stirring rendition of 'I Believe I Can Fly.' The assembled crowd joined in for the final refrains. Ingram later commented that he was very proud to be associated with this grand opening, and how glad he was to have such an icon of the space age in Los Angeles.

'It gives me hope that one day regular folks like us can go into space and come back transformed,' he said.

Speaking out against naysayers

Among the featured speakers were California Governor Jerry Brown, who pointed out that Endeavour had been built just a few miles away at (then) Rockwell International, and had been a boon to the California economy. He challenged the 'many naysayers who ask why did we spend billions on the shuttle and $2.5 billion on Curiosity?'

'Why? Because human beings are about exploration, are about experimentation,' he said.

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also took the podium to comment on what Endeavour means to Los Angeles and the future of science and technology education. When the mayor addressed the children present, asking who wanted to be an astronaut, most of the adults in the room joined the kids to raise their hands with great enthusiasm.

Nichelle Nichols of 'Star Trek' television fame was also present, as was June Lockhart from 'Lost in Space.' Both were warmly welcomed by the crowd, with Nichols acknowledging her introduction with a famous Vulcan gesture and a hearty 'Live long and prosper.'

After the speeches and a vibrant dance number choreographed by dancer and actress Debbie Allen (to the quirky theme of 'Men In Black'), the schoolchildren, who had shown masterful restraint, were free to wander the exhibit and marvel at the machine above them. More than one simply stood, mouth agape, taking in the vast tiled underbody of the orbiter. [Shuttle Endeavour: 6 Surprising Facts]

Antonio Rosales, a fourth grader at the Science Center's resident magnet elementary school, could barely take his eyes off the orbiter. 'It's so big!' he exclaimed. 'I like science, and my school is really cool because we get to do science. And now we have this,' he gestured to the orbiter, 'And that's really, really cool.'

Sophie Juarez, a second grade student, proudly announced that she knew the number of flights that Endeavour had made. 'Twenty-five!' she beamed. 'It went to space 25 times.' She then looked shyly at her friends surrounding her, and whispered, 'I want to be an astronaut when I grow up and go to the moon!'

David Dickenson of Los Angeles stood nearby with his young son. 'I wanted him to see the shuttle and remember this moment,' he said. The boy, Matthew, pulled his father toward the nearby shuttle main engine display. 'He's only five, so it may be a bit soon. But I think he'll remember it. I sure will,' Disckenson said.

The main engine exhibit, video kiosks and a Spacelab unit round out the exhibits inside the hangar.

A public welcome

A few hundred feet away inside the adjoining museum, well over a thousand people stood in line awaiting the public opening at 11 a.m. PDT. Clarisse Washington was typical of the crowd: 'I just had to come,' she said. 'The shuttle is such a part of us, of L.A., you know? I just can't wait to get inside!'

Behind her stood Ralph and Linda Johnson. 'We came from the Bay Area to see this opening,' Ralph remarked. 'It's not everyday that a shuttle arrives in California, and now that we are retired, it's time to do the things that count.'

Outside a balmy sun warmed further crowds gathering around the building hoping for a chance to see the newly arrived orbiter. Hawkers sold American flags and 'Endeavour Mission 26' buttons. It was a festive picture and the crowds were all smiles as they prepared to enter the exhibit.

Bruce Wexler of Westminster, Calif., summed it up best. 'Look at these people! It's just so thrilling to see all these people come out to see the shuttle,' he said. 'It's great to see the interest in space, and I think this exhibit will be good for getting kids interested in science again.'

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Dark Matter Contest Enlists the Masses

The nature of dark matter has stumped astronomers for decades, so now they're turning to the masses for help.

Scientists have launched a public competition in an attempt to better understand dark matter, the mysterious stuff thought to make up 83 percent of all matter in the universe (the rest is the 'normal' matter that makes up everything we can see and touch). Despite its prevalence, dark matter cannot be detected directly, only sensed through its gravitational pull.

The contest organizers - which include astronomers from the University of Edinburgh, the crowdsourcing website Kaggle and British investment firm Winton Capital Management - hope thousands of people will take up the challenge using a variety of techniques.

'By encouraging thousands of people to focus on a problem, we have a good chance of making progress quickly,' astronomer David Harvey, of the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement. 'This competition could make a real difference in solving an enigma that has puzzled astronomers for decades.' [Gallery: Dark Matter Throughout the Universe]

Participants may be drawn in by more than just pride or the desire to advance scientific knowledge. Winton is offering prizes of $12,000, $5,000 and $3,000 for the competition, which is known as Observing Dark Worlds.

Astronomers know that dark matter causes galaxies to form huge clusters in space. Observing Dark Worlds asks participants to develop ways to analyze pictures of these galaxy clusters taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

The goal is twofold - to better understand how the clusters formed and to create a detailed map of dark matter distribution, both of which could yield key insights.

'Winton is delighted to support this competition because understanding dark matter is one of the great scientific challenges of the 21st century,' said David Harding, Winton's founder, chairman and head of research.

Researchers expect the contest to attract people who have experience organizing or analyzing large datasets, such as scientists, statisticians and engineers. A better understanding of dark matter could come by adapting techniques or knowledge outside the field of astronomy, organizers said.

'Competitions bring together an array of the brightest individuals around the globe, and focus them on challenging problems,' said Kaggle data scientist Ben Hamner. 'We're excited to leverage this capability to attack some of the most fundamental questions in astronomy.'

If you're interested in throwing your hat in the ring, visit www.kaggle.com/c/DarkWorlds for more details about the contest. Entrants have until Dec. 16 to submit their ideas.

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Russian Spacecraft Makes Halloween Cargo Delivery to Space Station

This story was updated at 9:40 a.m. EDT.

A robotic Russian cargo spacecraft made a Halloween delivery today (Oct. 31) to the International Space Station.

The unmanned Progress 49 spacecraft blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome at 3:41 a.m. EDT (0741 GMT) today, carrying nearly 3 tons of supplies for the orbiting laboratory. It arrived roughly six hours later, docking at 9:33 a.m. EDT (1333 GMT), as the two vehicles were roughly 250 miles (400 km) above Bogota, Columbia.

Progress 49 is toting 2.9 tons of supplies, including 2,050 pounds (930 kilograms) of propellant, 926 pounds (420 kg) of water, 62 pounds (28 kg) of oxygen and 2,738 pounds (1,242 kg) of spare parts, NASA officials said. There's no word yet on whether any candy corn or miniature chocolate bars made it onboard to help the space station's six astronauts celebrate the season.

Life on orbit is always busy, but this week is particularly jam-packed for station crew.

For example, today's launch comes just three days after SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule left the station, wrapping up the first-ever commercial cargo mission to the $100 billion orbiting complex. Dragon splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja California coast on Sunday afternoon (Oct. 28).

Dragon will make at least 11 more flights to the station under a $1.6 billion contract that California-based SpaceX signed with NASA. Its next launch is currently scheduled for January, agency officials have said.

Dragon is unique in its ability to ferry hardware, supplies and scientific experiments both to and from the space station. All other cargo craft currently operating - including Russia's Progress ships - carry supplies to the orbiting lab but burn up upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Shortly after welcoming Progress 49 to the station, crewmembers will turn their attention to another task. NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, commander of the orbiting complex's current Expedition 33 mission, and Japanese colleague Akihiko Hoshide will perform a spacewalk Thursday morning (Nov. 1).

Beginning at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1215 GMT) Thursday, Williams and Hoshide will venture to the port side of the station's backbone-like truss to repair an ammonia leak in a radiator. The spacewalk should take about 6 1/2 hours, NASA officials said.

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Stunning Star Cluster Includes Deceptively Young Stars

An ancient but little-known star cluster is giving astronomers a celestial Halloween treat in a dazzling new photo from the European Southern Observatory.

The cluster NGC 6362, what's known as a globular cluster, was observed by the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The resulting stunning photo reveals tens of thousands of very ancient stars, along with a number of stars passing off as younger than they are.

Globular clusters are tight balls of stars that orbit the outskirts of galaxies. Most of the stars inside them are thought to have formed at roughly the same time, so they are of a similar age,typically about 10 billion years old.

Indeed, most of the stars inside NGC 6362 are red giants that appear yellow and aged. However, the observatory's view also shows a number of so-called blue stragglers, stars that appear younger than their true age.

These stars are bluer, more luminous, and more massive than they should be after 10 billion years of stellar evolution; if they had truly formed that long ago, they should have already died. Astronomers suspect that blue straggler stars weren't born as massive as they are now. Instead, there are two possibilities: these stars have either stolen mass from companion stars, or are the result of mergers between two stars that collided.

The cluster NGC 6362 lies in the southern constellation of Ara, the Altar, and it can be spotted through a small telescope. It was first discovered in 1826 by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop using a 22-centimeter telescope in Australia.

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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

NASA rover finds Mars' soil similar to Hawaii's

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - In the first inventory of minerals on another planet, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity found soil that bears a striking resemblance to weathered, volcanic sand in Hawaii, scientists said on Tuesday.

The rover uses an X-ray imager to reveal the atomic structures of crystals in the Martian soil, the first time the technology, known as X-ray diffraction, has been used to analyze soil beyond Earth.

'This was a 22-year journey and a magical moment for me,' NASA's David Blake, lead scientist for the rover's mineralogical instrument, told reporters during a conference call.

Curiosity found the Martian sand grains have crystals similar to basaltic soils found in volcanic regions on Earth, like Hawaii.

Scientists plan to use the information about Mars' minerals to figure out if the planet most like Earth in the solar system could have supported and preserved microbial life.

'The mineralogy of Mars' soil has been a source of conjecture until now,' said Curiosity scientist David Vaniman of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.

'This interest isn't just academic,' he added. 'Soils on planets' surfaces are a reflection of surface exposure processes and history, with information on present and past climates.'

Specifically, scientists want to understand what conditions existed to allow the particular minerals to form. The first Martian soil scoop is mineralogically similar to basaltic materials and comprised primarily of feldspar, pyroxene and olivine.

About half the soil is non-crystalline materials, like volcanic glass, that form from the breakdown of rocks.

Several processes can account for this weathering, including interaction with water or oxygen, similar to how rust forms on iron-metal surfaces.

Brute force, such as sandstorms or meteorite impacts, also could account for the soil's weathered components, said chemist Douglas Ming of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The Curiosity rover landed inside a giant impact crater near the Martian equator in August for a two-year, $2.5-billion mission, NASA's first astrobiology expedition since the 1970s-era Viking probes.

The rover is scouting a site where three types of rock intersect. Next year, scientists plan to drive it over to a three-mile (5-km) mound of sediment, named Mount Sharp, rising from the floor of the crater.

'We're hopeful that once we get into the truly ancient materials on Mount Sharp, we will find minerals that suggest there was a habitable environment of some kind there. We haven't had that happen yet, but we have a lot of time left,' Blake said.

While X-ray diffraction has been around for a century, using the technology on Mars required years of work to scale down refrigerator-sized equipment into something that would fit into the space of a shoe box.

The miniaturized, low-power instrument is used in the mining, oil and gas industries and is being evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to screen for counterfeit pharmaceuticals.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Stacey Joyce)

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Mars Dirt Similar to Hawaiian Volcanic Soil

The first-ever in-depth analysis of Martian dirt reveals a mineralogical makeup similar to that of Hawaiian volcanic soils, researchers announced today (Oct. 30).

The results come from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which recently studied a scoop of Red Planet dirt with its Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, or CheMin, for the first time.

'This Martian soil that we've analyzed on Mars just this past week appears mineralogically similar to some weathered basaltic materials that we see on Earth,' David Bish, a CheMin co-investigator with Indiana University, told reporters. He cited as an example the 'weathered soils on the flanks of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.'

CheMin is one of 10 science instruments that Curiosity is using to determine if its Gale Crater landing site could ever have supported microbial life. CheMin studies soil and powdered rock samples using a technique called X-ray diffraction, which reads the structure of minerals by interpreting how X-rays bounce off of them. [Gallery: Latest Photos from Curiosity]

What was expected

X-ray diffraction is standard practice for geologists here on Earth, but Curiosity is the first robot ever to employ it on another planet, researchers said. The mission team had to shrink the necessary gear from the size of a refrigerator down to that of a shoebox to get CheMin to fit on the car-size rover, which landed on Mars in August.

'We can tell you, first of all, what minerals are present, and secondly, how much of each mineral is there,' said CheMin principal investigator David Blake, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. 'So it's really the first full-up quantitative instrument for doing this work on Mars.'

CheMin's first results - obtained using soil Curiosity scooped at a site called 'Rocknest' - aren't terribly surprising, researchers said.

'Much of Mars is covered with dust, and we had an incomplete understanding of its mineralogy,' Bish said in a statement. 'We now know it is mineralogically similar to basaltic material, with significant amounts of feldspar, pyroxene and olivine, which was not unexpected. Roughly half the soil is non-crystalline material, such as volcanic glass or products from weathering of the glass.'

The sample contains at least two components: particles distributed globally by Martian dust storms and sand that appears to have originated locally, in Gale Crater. In contrast to the conglomerate rocks Curiosity discovered a month or so ago, there is no evidence of strong interaction with liquid water in the Rocknest sample, researchers said.

'So far, the materials Curiosity has analyzed are consistent with our initial ideas of the deposits in Gale Crater recording a transition through time from a wet to dry environment,' Bish said. 'The ancient rocks, such as the conglomerates, suggest flowing water, while the minerals in the younger soil are consistent with limited interaction with water.'

Next up

Curiosity has been at Rocknest for about a month. During this time, the $2.5 billion rover has been gearing up for its first scooping activities and preparing to use CheMin and its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument for the first time.

Like CheMin, SAM sits on Curiosity's body and analyzes samples dropped in by the rover's 7-foot-long (2.1 meters) robotic arm. SAM can identify organic compounds, the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.

The first SAM soil results should come in soon, mission scientists said.

'We hope to be at this location for about another week, and today we will begin the uplinking process for the part of the experiment that feeds the sample eventually to the SAM instrument,' said Curiosity lead scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena. 'About a week or 10 days from now, we should be getting data back from the conclusion of that.'

SAM has already been sniffing the Martian atmosphere for traces of methane, a gas that is commonly produced by living organisms here on Earth. The mission team isn't ready to announce any results from this activity yet but should be soon.

'Stay tuned,' Grotzinger said.

While at Rocknest, Curiosity has also been studying Red Planet rocks with some of its cameras and other instruments.

For example, last week the rover blasted a miniature system of natural arches - dubbed 'Stonehenge' by some mission team members - with the laser on its ChemCam instrument. ChemCam determines mineral composition by analyzing the vaporized bits this laser produces.

Curiosity landed inside Gale Crater on Aug. 5. Its main destination is the base of Mount Sharp, the 3.4-mile-high (5.5 km) mountain rising from the crater's center. Mars-orbiting spacecraft have spotted signs that Mount Sharp's foothills were exposed to liquid water long ago.

These interesting deposits lie about 6 miles (10 km) from Curiosity's landing site. Scientists want the rover to perform its first drilling activity at or near Rocknest, but Curiosity should start heading toward Mount Sharp when that's done - perhaps around the end of the year, Grotzinger has said.

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Recovered SpaceX Capsule Arrives at California Port

WASHINGTON - About two days after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, a commercially operated space capsule laden with 760 kilograms of return cargo from the international space station arrived at port in San Pedro, Calif., in the early morning hours of Oct. 30.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) recovered its Dragon space capsule Oct. 28, the same day the craft departed the space station. Dragon splashed down about 400 kilometers off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, with a cache of cargo including items belonging to NASA and its international space station partners.

The ship carrying Dragon docked around 3 a.m. local time, SpaceX spokeswoman Katherine Nelson said in an Oct. 30 email.

Some of the items Dragon is carrying have been designated as early return cargo. These items will be unpacked in San Pedro and returned to NASA. Dragon, along with the rest of its cargo, will then be trucked to SpaceX's engine test facility in McGregor, Texas, for postflight processing. [Photos: Dragon's 1st Space Cargo Delivery]

Dragon's return is a milestone in NASA's effort to turn space station cargo logistics over to private operators. The craft's splashdown marked the completion of the first mission under Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX's $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract signed with NASA in 2008. SpaceX has 11 more missions to fly under that contract.

Dragon launched Oct. 7 aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying 400 kilograms of cargo including crew supplies and research hardware. Despite the loss of one of the rocket's nine first-stage engines 79 seconds after liftoff, Dragon reached the international space station Oct. 10 as planned. However, the engine anomaly, which is still under investigation by a joint NASA-SpaceX team, forced SpaceX to jettison a secondary commercial payload into a lower-than-intended orbit. The payload, an experimental satellite that belonged to Fort Lee, N.J.-based Orbcomm, subsequently fell out of orbit, that company announced Oct. 11.

SpaceX is one of two companies with contracts to fly cargo to the international space station. The other, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is now expected to begin routine delivery missions sometime in 2013.

Orbital still has two demonstration flights to complete before it can begin fulfilling its own $1.9 billion delivery contract with NASA. The first of those flights, a test of the company's Antares medium-lift rocket without the Cygnus cargo capsule, is supposed to take place this year.

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Moon's Mysterious 'Ocean of Storms' Explained

The largest dark spot on the moon, known as the Ocean of Storms, may be a scar from a giant cosmic impact that created a magma sea more than a thousand miles wide and several hundred miles deep, researchers say.

These findings could help explain why the moon's near and far sides are so very different from one another, investigators added.

Scientists analyzed Oceanus Procellarum, or the Ocean of Storms, a dark spot on the near side of the moon more than 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) wide.

The near side of the moon, the side that always faces Earth, is quite different from the far side, often erroneously called the moon's dark side (this side does in fact get sunlight - it simply never faces Earth). For example, widespread plains of volcanic rock called 'maria' (Latin for seas) cover nearly a third of the near side, but only a few maria are seen on the far one.

Researchers have posed a number of explanations for the vast disparity between the moon's near and far sides. Some have suggested that a tiny second moon may once have orbited Earth before catastrophically slamming into the other moon, spreading its remains mostly on the moon's far side. Others have proposed that Earth's pull on the moon caused distortions that were later frozen in place on the moon's near side.

Similarly, Mars' northern and southern halves are also stark contrasts from one another, and researchers had suggested that a monstrous impact may have been the cause. Now scientists in Japan say that a giant collision may also explain the moon's two-faced nature, one that gave rise to the Ocean of Storms.

The researchers analyzed the composition of the moon's surface using data from the Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya/Selene. These data revealed that a low-calcium variety of the mineral pyroxene is concentrated around Oceanus Procellarum and large impact craters such as the South Pole-Aitkenand Imbriumbasins. This type of pyroxene is linked with the melting and excavation of material from the lunar mantle, and suggests the Ocean of Storms is a leftover from a cataclysmic impact.

This collision would have generated 'a 3,000-kilometer (1,800-mile) wide magma sea several hundred kilometers in depth,' lead study author Ryosuke Nakamura, a planetary scientist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, told SPACE.com.

The investigators say that collisions large enough to create Oceanus Procellarum and the moon's other giant impact basins would have completely stripped the original crust on the near side of the moon. The crust that later formed there from the molten rock left after these impacts would differ dramatically from that on the far side, explaining why these halves are so distinct.

Some researchers had speculated that the Procellarum basin was the relic of a gigantic impact. However, this idea was hotly debated because there were no definite topographic signs it was an impact basin, 'possibly because the formation date was too old, maybe more than 4 billion years,' Nakamura said. 'Our discovery provides the first compositional evidence of this idea, which could be confirmed by future lunar sample return missions, such as Moonrise,' a proposed NASA mission that would send an unmanned probe to collect lunar dirt and return it to Earth.

'The neighboring Earth likely experienced similar-sized impacts around the same period,' Nakamura added. 'It would have had a great effect on the onset of Earth's continental crust formation and the beginning of life.'

The scientists detailed their findings online Oct. 28 in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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Monday, October 29, 2012

Full Moon 'Fright Night': Watch the Hunter's Moon Live Online Tonight

You can have a front-row seat for tonight's (Oct. 29) full moon via a live webcast from the Slooh Space Camera, showing real-time views from an observatory on Spain's Canary Islands.

This full moon is called the 'Hunter's Moon,' named for hunting season, which is ripe now with theleaves falling and the deer fattened after summer.

Slooh's 'Fright Night' broadcast will begin at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT, or 23:00 UTC). You can watch for free on Slooh's website: http://www.slooh.com.

The program will feature not just great views of the cratered moon, but a tour of other celestial 'spooky' objects just in time for Halloween.

'The Hunter's Moon will be up that night - a perfect prelude to Halloween, since the moon plays a rich role in Halloween lore,' Slooh officials wrote in a statement. 'But, unknown to most of the public, other prominent celestial objects are even more deeply associated with 'the darker side' of the night.'

The space camera will focus in on the Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, 'whose date of midnight culmination was the very origin of the original Black Sabbath, which evolved into All Hallows Eve and ultimately Halloween,' according to Slooh officials. 'Why was this beautiful blue cluster so associated with death and evil?'

Tune in to find out!

The webcast will be hosted by Slooh president Patrick Paolucci, Slooh outreach coordinator Paul Cox, and Astronomy Magazine columnist Bob Berman.

The online Slooh Space Camera broadcasts weekly shows highlighting the wonders of the universe. The project launched on Christmas Day of 2003.

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How Paintballs Could Save Earth from Giant Asteroid Impact

An epic battle between paintballs and a giant asteroid could one day save the Earth from an apocalyptic space rock impact.

The novel asteroid-deflecting scheme proposes that a cloud of paintballs shot into space could knock a dangerous asteroid off a collision course with Earth.

Sung Wook Paek, an MIT graduate student, says a spacecraft could fire two rounds of pellets full of white paint powder at an asteroid to cover as much of the rock's surface as possible. The strategy, unveiled Friday (Oct. 26), won the 2012 Move an Asteroid Technical Paper Competition, sponsored by the United Nations' Space Generation Advisory Council.

The initial force from the paintballs would nudge the asteroid slightly off course, Paek says. And the pale paint job resulting from the splattered pellets would more than double the space rock's sunlight reflectivity. More photons bouncing off the asteroid's surface would enhance solar radiation pressure and bump it further off course.

The asteroid Apophis was used as a theoretical test case in Paek's proposal. The 900-foot-wide (270-meter) asteroid is perhaps the most often cited as a potential candidate for impacting Earth sometime in the next few decades. Observations suggest it may come close to Earth in 2029, and then again in 2036.

Five tons of paint would be required to cover Apophis, according to Paek's calculations. He also estimated that it would take up to 20 years for enough solar radiation pressure to successfully pull it off its Earth-bound trajectory.

Paek, who is studying aeronautics and astronautics, says his strategy could be used to shoot other substances besides paint at a space rock.

The pellets could be packed with aerosols that would 'impart air drag on the incoming asteroid to slow it down,' he said in a statement. 'Or you could just paint the asteroid so you can track it more easily with telescopes on Earth. So there are other uses for this method.'

Researchers have been dreaming up ways to drag asteroids off their orbits in case we're ever facing an 'Armageddon'-like situation. Other plans that have been proposed involve gravity tractors, laser beams, impactors and even nuclear bombs.

Paek's work builds on last year's winning proposal, which involved deflecting an asteroid with a cloud of solid pellets.

Lindley Johnson, program manager for NASA's Near Earth Objects Observation Program, described Paek's proposal as 'an innovative variation' on techniques used to take advantage of solar radiation pressure. NASA's Messenger spacecraft, for example, uses solar sails to control its trajectory around Mercury.

'It is very important that we develop and test a few deflection techniques sufficiently so that we know we have a viable 'toolbox' of deflection capabilities to implement when we inevitably discover an asteroid on an impact trajectory,' Johnson said in a statement.

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Sunday, October 28, 2012

Private SpaceX Capsule Lands After Historic Mission to Space Station

This story was updated at 3:25 p.m. EDT.

NASA's first commercial cargo flight ended with a splash today (Oct. 28), when the SpaceX Dragon capsule landed after a landmark mission to the International Space Station.

The unmanned Dragon space capsule, built by the U.S. company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California at 3:22 p.m. EDT (1922 GMT), ending a three-week visit to the orbiting laboratory.

Dragon began its descent with a de-orbit burn at 2:28 p.m. EDT (1828 GMT), after departing the station at 9:29 a.m. EDT (1329 GMT) as both spacecraft sailed 255 miles (410 kilometers) above Burma. The station's crew used the outpost's robotic arm to release the spacecraft.

'It was nice while she was on board. We tamed her [and] took her home,' space station commander Sunita Williams of NASA radioed Mission Control in Houston as the Dragon capsule departed. 'Literally and figuratively, there are pieces of us on that spacecraft going home to Earth.'

The Dragon capsule is returning hundreds of astronaut blood and urine samples from the space station amid the 1,673 pounds (758 kilograms) of experiments and gear loaded on board. Some of those samples have been waiting for more than a year. NASA's final space shuttle mission landed in July 2011, leaving the agency without a way to return big cargo deliveries to Earth until Dragon's flight. [Photos: Dragon's 1st Space Cargo Delivery]

The spacecraft is expected to be retrieved by a SpaceX recovery crew so the cargo can be delivered to NASA. The mission is the first of 12 commercial resupply flights by SpaceX under a $1.6 billion deal with NASA.

The Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX (short for Space Exploration Technologies) launched the Dragon capsule toward the space station on Oct. 7 using one of the company's own Falcon 9 rockets and a pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The capsule was packed with 882 pounds (400 kg) of supplies to for the station, including 260 pounds (117 kg) of crew gear, 390 pounds (176 kg) of scientific equipment, 225 pounds (102 kg) of hardware and several pounds of other cargo, NASA officials said.

The cargo returning home on Dragon are 163 pounds (74 kg) of crew supplies, 866 pounds (392 kg) of scientific research and 518 pounds (235 kg) of other hardware, they added.

SpaceX is the first robotic spacecraft ever to be capable of returning cargo to Earth.

'It has been an historic mission,' NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said during undocking commentary.

The unmanned cargo ships built by Russia, Japan and Europe are all designed for one-way trips and are intentionally destroyed during re-entry at the end of their missions. The Russian Soyuz capsules that ferry crews to and from the space station have limited cargo return capabilities, NASA scientists have said.

SpaceX was founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002 as a private spaceflight company. In May, the company launched its first Dragon capsule test flight to the space station to set the stage for this month's first cargo delivery flight. The next Dragon cargo mission is slated to launch in mid-January.

SpaceX is one of two companies with deals to launch cargo delivery flights on unmanned spacecraft for NASA. The other company, Virginia's Orbital Sciences Corp., has a $1.9 billion contract with the agency for at least eight missions to the station using the new Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft. The first Antares test flight is set for later this year.

With its space shuttle fleet retired, NASA is relying on the Dragon and Cygnus spacecraft to ferry U.S. supplies to and from the International Space Station. The space agency is also supporting the development of new commercial U.S. spacecraft to launch American astronauts on space station trips.

SpaceX is one of four companies currently developing manned private space taxis with NASA funding support. The company is upgrading its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsules to eventually launch crews of seven astronauts into orbit.

Visit SPACE.com today for complete coverage of SpaceX's Dragon capsule departure from the space station and return to Earth.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik and SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Blood and Astronaut Pee: Creepy Cargo Returns to Earth on SpaceX Capsule Today

A privately built spacecraft will carry some extra creepy cargo back to Earth from the International Space Station Sunday (Oct. 28): astronaut blood and urine.

Hundreds of blood and urine samples, some in bags and others in syringes, are returning to Earth aboard an unmanned Dragon space capsule that is wrapping up the first commercial cargo flight to the station by the private spaceflight company SpaceX. The Dragon capsule is due to leave the station just after 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT).

'Bio samples, experiments, and hardware loaded into #Dragon; hatch is now closed. Next stop, Earth!' SpaceX officials wrote via Twitter Saturday.

You can watch the Dragon capsule undocking live today here on NASA TV. The webcast will begin at 7 a.m. ET (1100 GMT), with the spacecraft splashing down at about 3:20 p.m. EDT (1920 GMT).

Blood and astronaut pee

The gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule is returning nearly 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) of experiments and gear from the International Space Station, but NASA scientists said they are extra excited about the blood and urine samples coming home. [Astronaut Blood and Urine on Dragon Explained (Video)]

There are 384 syringes of urine and 112 tubes of blood packed aboard Dragon, some of which have been waiting for delivery to scientists on the ground for more than a year. The samples were taken by space station astronauts as part of two ongoing experiments studying the nutrition of astronauts and how their diet can help protect against the negative health effects of long-term space travel, such as bone loss.

'While it may seem very strange to some folks, my typical line is that, 'It may be urine to you, but it's gold for us,'' NASA nutritionist Scott Smith of the Johnson Space Center said before the Dragon mission. 'There's a lot of science that comes out of this.'

Smith said his team has not returned any astronaut blood and urine samples from the space station since July 2011, the month of NASA's final space shuttle mission before the fleet was retired. Since then, the samples were stored in freezers awaiting the Dragon spacecraft. American astronauts, meanwhile, traveled to and from the station on Russian Soyuz capsules.

A round-trip American spacecraft

SpaceX's Dragon capsules are the first commercial spacecraft to visit the space station. This mission, called Commercial Resupply Service 1, is the first round-trip delivery flight under a $1.6 billion contract between the Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX and NASA. It followed a successful test flight in May and at least 11 more missions are planned. [Photos: Dragon's 1st Space Cargo Delivery]

'The novelty at this point with SpaceX is that this is the first real return vehicle for these types of samples,' Smith said. 'We can get the crew home onboard the Soyuz, but the cargo capacity on Soyuz is quite limited.'

Unmanned resupply spacecraft built by Russia, Japan and Europe are all designed for one-way trips. After making their deliveries, the spacecraft are intentionally burned up in Earth's atmosphere for disposal.

SpaceX is one of two private companies with NASA contracts to supply unmanned cargo deliveries. The other company is Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, which has a $1.9 billion for at least eight resupply flights using its new Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft, which are also designed to be disposable. The first test of an Antares rocket is set for later this year.

Landmark spaceflight

SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies, launched the current Dragon space mission on Oct. 7 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The robotic spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on Oct. 10 to deliver nearly 1,000 pounds (453 kilograms) of supplies to the orbiting lab's Expedition 33 crew.

Today, the station's six-person crew will use a robotic arm to pluck the Dragon capsule free of its docking port on the bottom of the orbiting lab, and then set it free so it can re-enter Earth's atmosphere. The capsule is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California.

A SpaceX recovery team will retrieve the capsule and transport it to a facility in McGregor, Texas, so it can be unpacked. The blood and urine samples and the rest of the cargo will then be delivered to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

In addition to the biological samples for NASA, the Dragon capsule also flew 23 student experiments to the station as part of an educational program. The student experiments, which are encased in small glows stick-like containers, were activated by the station crew and are being returned to Earth for analysis.

'This flight is really all-out, maxed out, fulfilling our research needs,' NASA's space station program scientist Julie Robinson said.

Visit SPACE.com today for complete coverage of SpaceX's Dragon capsule departure from the space station and return to Earth.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik and 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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Saturday, October 27, 2012

NASA Center in Virginia Braces for 'Frankenstorm' Hurricane Sandy

As Hurricane Sandy barrels toward the U.S. East Coast, NASA is battening the hatches at its Virginia coast launch and flight testing grounds to prepare for a literal wallop from the oncoming 'Frankenstorm.' A private rocket is on a launch pad at the site awaiting its maiden flight, and must also be protected.

The space agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., is bracing for potential flooding and high winds from Sandy when it arrives early next week. The storm, currently a Category 1 hurricane, is expected to merge with cold weather fronts early next week to become a more powerful storm.

'We're watching it closely,' Wallops spokesman Keith Koehler told SPACE.com Friday (Oct. 26). 'We've started preparations like putting aircraft into hangars and clearing those hangars as best we can, just taking the appropriate precautions.'

Hurricane Sandy is expected to make landfall between Virginia and New York sometime between Monday and Tuesday (Oct. 29 and 30), according to National Hurricane Center forecasts. [Photos: 'Frankenstorm' Hurricane Sandy from Space]

The Wallops Flight Facility is the center of NASA's suborbital research projects and oversees balloon and sounding rocket launches from the Virginia's Eastern Shore and elsewhere. The facility is staffed by 1,100 workers and also serves as a hub for aeronautics research.

Koehler said that on Sunday (Oct. 28), the flight center will be closed, with only a skeleton crew of Wallops staff, security and emergency personnel remaining on Wallops Island. A public night sky observing event scheduled for Saturday was canceled due to the weather, he added.

Wallops is also the home of new commercial spaceflight efforts and the first private Antares rocket by the Virginia-based company Orbital Sciences Corp., stands partially assembled atop a launch pad at the nearby Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. The Antares rocket's first stage was moved to the launch pad on Oct. 1 for fueling and other tests.

Propellant hoses to the rocket are being detached to help prepare it for the upcoming storm rains and winds, Orbital Sciences spokesman Barron Beneski told SPACE.com. The rocket's nearby hangar is also being safeguarded against the storm.

Orbital Sciences has a $1.9 billion contract to launch at least eight cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station for NASA using its Antares rockets and Cygnus, a new robotic spacecraft. The first Antares rocket is slated to launch by the end of the year.

As of Saturday morning, Hurricane Sandy was about 165 miles (270 kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island and 335 miles (540 km) southeast of Charleston, S.C. It had maximum sustained wind speeds of75 mph (120 kph) and was moving north-northeast at about 10 mph (17 kph).

The storm caused at least 43 deaths as it barreled across the Bahamas in the Caribbean, according to news reports.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are tracking Hurricane Sandy from space using several satellites. The hurricane has also been seen from the International Space Station in Earth orbit.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik and SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

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Friday, October 26, 2012

SpaceX's Dragon Capsule to Leave Space Station Sunday

The private Dragon spacecraft is set to return to Earth Sunday (Oct. 28), wrapping up the first-ever commercial cargo mission to the International Space Station.

The unmanned Dragon capsule, built by the California-based firm SpaceX, is scheduled to undock from the orbiting lab at 7:55 a.m. EDT (1155 GMT) Sunday, then be released by the station's huge robotic arm about 90 minutes later.

If all goes according to plan, Dragon will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast at 3:20 p.m EDT (1920 GMT) Sunday, where SpaceX personnel will retrieve it with a crane-equipped boat. You can watch the Dragon's undocking live on NASA TV here beginning at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT).

'In California, SpaceX crew have already headed to the Pacific Ocean splashdown zone to await Dragon's arrival, while at the station, Expedition 33 crew members are readying Dragon's return cargo, including biological samples that have been stored in the station's freezers since the retirement of the space shuttle,' SpaceX officials wrote in a mission update Friday (Oct. 26). [Photos: SpaceX's Dragon Arrives at Space Station]

Dragon launched atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on Oct. 7, kicking off the first of 12 robotic supply flights the company will make for NASA under a $1.6 billion contract. The capsule arrived at the station three days later, delivering 882 pounds (400 kilograms) of supplies and scientific experiments.

Dragon will bring 1,673 pounds (759 kg) of cargo back down to Earth Sunday, including 866 pounds (393 kg) of scientific research gear, NASA officials said.

NASA is looking to American companies such as California-based SpaceX to fill the crew- and cargo-carrying void left by the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2011. The agency also signed a $1.9 billion deal with another firm, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., to make eight unmanned supply flights with its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft.

Orbital plans to test-fly Antares for the first time later this year. Meanwhile, Dragon's second official supply mission is slated to blast off in January. That flight will actually mark Dragon's third visit to the space station; it first docked with the orbiting lab in May of this year during a historic demonstration mission.

SpaceX is also working to develop a manned version of Dragon, in the hopes of winning a NASA contract to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. The company has said it may be ready to carry crews by 2015 or so.

Three other firms - Sierra Nevada, Boeing and Blue Origin - have also received NASA funding in the last two years to develop crewed vehicles. NASA hopes at least two of the four companies have manned spaceships up and running by 2017.

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

Hurricane Sandy Actually a 'Bride of Frankenstorm': NASA

With a potentially monster storm approaching the U.S. East Coast just days ahead of Halloween, it's not surprising that weather forecasters have dubbed the intense Hurricane Sandy a 'Frankenstorm.' But there may be a better name for the incoming hurricane, NASA officials say.

Hurricane Sandy is currently a Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale as it creeps northward in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm is expected to merge with another cold front early next week and could transform into a powerful hybrid tempest, according to the National Hurricane Center.

'Some forecasters are calling this combination of weather factors 'Frankenstorm' because of the close proximity to Halloween,' officials with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., wrote in a storm update today (Oct. 26). 'However, because Sandy is a woman's name, the storm could be considered a 'bride of Frankenstorm.''

Sandy has grown in size such that its cloud cover blankets an area 2,000 miles (3,218 kilometers) across as the storm passed over the Bahamas, NASA officials said. [Photos: 'Frankenstorm' Hurricane Sandy from Space]

As of this afternoon, Hurricane Sandy was about 430 miles (695 kilometers) south-southeast of Charleston, S.C., and 30 miles (50 km) north-northeast of Great Abaco Island. The storm had maximum sustained winds of about 75 mph (120 kph) and was moving north at about 7 mph (11 kph).

Hurricanes and other major storms have names that progress in alphabetical order and alternate between the male and female genders. The storm before Sandy was called Rafael and the storm that immediately followed the 'Frankenstorm' was named Tony.

The next major Atlantic storm to carry a female name will be called Valerie, according to the current cycle. Names beginning with the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z are left out of naming convention due to their limited number.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are keeping constant watch on Hurricane Sandy using satellites that monitor the storm non-stop with radar and in visible light and infrared wavelengths. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite has revealed spots of intense rainfall around the storm's center, Goddard officials explained.

'Storm surge is expected to be [a] big factor as Sandy approaches the Mid-Atlantic coast. Very rough surf and high and dangerous waves are expected to be coupled with the full moon,' Goddard officials wrote. 'The National Hurricane Center noted that the combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters.'

NASA is providing constant updates, interviews and video to the public via its hurricane status website here. The term 'Bride of Frankenstorm' was proposed by Goddard's Rob Gutro, Hal Pierce and Marshall Sheperd during today's updates.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik and 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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'Frankenstorm': Hurricane Sandy Seen From Space Station in NASA Video

The immense size of Hurricane Sandy has been captured by cameras on the International Space Station from its perch hundreds of miles above Earth.

The space station soared over Hurricane Sandy on Thursday (Oct. 25) as the storm reached Category 2 strength on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale while making its way toward the Bahamas. The storm battered the Bahamas late Thursday and has been blamed for 21 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean, according to media reports.

The U.S. National Weather Service dubbed Sandy a potential 'Frankenstorm' in an alert Thursday due to the chance of the hurricane merging with a cold front and transforming into a hybrid storm next week, just before Halloween.

'The current forecast track from the National Hurricane Center brings Sandy in for a landfall in central New Jersey on Tuesday, Oct. 30,' Rob Gutro, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., explained in a statement. 'Regardless, it appears that Sandy may be a strong wind event for the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Northeast.'

Hurricane Sandy was about 85 miles (137 kilometers) south-southeast of Great Exuma Island at the time the space station sailed overhead on Thursday at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT). The storm had maximum sustained winds of 105 mph (169 kph) and was moving northward at about 16 mph (25 kph).

According to Gutro, Hurricane Sandy grew substantially on Thursday, stretching more than 410 miles (660 kilometers) across by mid-afternoon. The storm swelled in size by 120 miles (193 km) just in the morning hours alone.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are keeping a constant watch on Sandy's development using satellites orbiting Earth. NASA's Terra satellite and NOAA's recently revived GOES-13 weather satellite have tracked the storm in visible light and infrared imagery as it made its way through the Caribbean Thursday.

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Thursday, October 25, 2012

US Air Force Plans Final Hypersonic X-51A Test Launch

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Air Force says it now plans to fly the last in a series of four Boeing-built experimental hypersonic vehicles in late spring or early summer under a troubled testing program that the service weighed canceling following an Aug. 14 failure.

During that flight, the third X-51A Waverider vehicle veered off course soon after separating from its carrier aircraft and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Investigators have determined that one of the vehicle's control fins inadvertently came unlocked, and are still trying to determine exactly why that happened, Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager for the Air Force Research Laboratory, said Oct. 24 during a media teleconference.

The failure investigation is expected to be completed by mid-December, Brink said.

The Waverider is designed to achieve speeds in excess of Mach 5 - five times the speed of sound - on the power of a supersonic combustion ramjet engine, also known as a scramjet. Boeing Defense, Space and Security of St. Louis built four X-51A vehicles under contract to the Air Force and Defense Research Projects Agency, but each of the three test flights to date has ended prematurely.

The Waverider vehicles are carried aloft by B-52 aircraft and after being released use solid-rocket boosters to achieve speeds approaching Mach 5. The solid-rocket motor is then jettisoned and the scramjet engine, built by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif., takes over.

It was only during the first Waverider flight in May 2010 that the vehicle was able to make the full transition to scramjet-powered flight. The scramjet engine ignited and failed shortly thereafter during the second flight, and never got a chance to ignite during the third.

Brink said he expects the Air Force to conduct a follow-on program to "mature scramjet engine technology" after the fourth X-51A flight but declined to discuss specifics.

This article was provided by Space News, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

Japan Wants Space Plane or Capsule by 2022

Japan hopes to be launching astronauts aboard a manned capsule or space plane by 2022, and the nation is also eyeing point-to-point suborbital transportation over the longer haul.

The capsule or mini-shuttle - which may resemble Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser space plane - would each accommodate a crew of three and carry up to 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of cargo, officials with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said this month.

The mini-shuttle would weigh 26,400 pounds (11,975 kg) and land at one of five suitable runways worldwide. Because a launch abort from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center would mean a Pacific Ocean landing, the space plane would also have to be able to cope with the sea.

JAXA is considering two different versions of the capsule, which would have a similar internal volume to SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. The 15,400-pound (6,985 kg) variant employs parachutes, while the 19,800-pound (8,981 kg) model uses a more maneuverable parafoil for greater landing accuracy to within a 1.9-mile (3 kilometers) radius. [How SpaceX's Dragon Capsule Works (Infographic)]

The heavier capsule would be able to land on solid ground, while the lighter model would only touch down at sea. JAXA also foresees further development of the capsule for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, officials said. JAXA officials presented the human spaceflight concepts at the at the International Astronautical Federation's meeting in Naples, Italy, earlier this month.

Building new capsules

Development of the crewed capsule will follow an unmanned reusable cargo capsule, called the HTV-R (R for 'recovery'), which JAXA is planning as an evolution of its expendable H-IIB Transfer Vehicle (HTV). The HTV has delivered cargo to the International Space Station three times, with the most recent trip coming in July.

The current HTV spacecraft's pressurized cargo section would be replaced by the recoverable capsule, which is made of an aluminium alloy. Development of the HTV-R begins next year, and the first flight is targeted for 2017, JAXA officials said.

'For HTV-R we are asking for funding for this coming year, and we are expecting next year to start development phase for HTV-R, and for the crewed capsule we are conducting some key technology research,' Kuniaki Shiraki, JAXA's executive director of human space systems and utilization mission directorate, told SPACE.com. 'This year on these [manned] technologies we are spending $600,000.'

Shiraki was among those who spoke at the 63rd annual International Astronautical Congress.

The recoverable capsule will use some of the same technologies as the current HTV, including its systems for rendezvous and docking, power, communications, and guidance, navigation and control. But the HTV-R will require development of some new gear, such as thermal protection, accurate re-entry guidance and parachute systems.

Both the HTV-R and the manned capsule would have an internal volume of 529 cubic feet (15 cubic meters), JAXA officials say. The cargo capsule would be 13.8 feet (4.2 m) wide and 10.8 feet (3.3 m) tall, with a dry mass of 9,680 pounds (4,390 kg), and it would re-enter the atmosphere ballistically.

The recoverable cargo capsule's propulsion systems will use green propellant, and its heat shield will be made of a low density, lightweight material. The capsule would not be fully reusable; its interior would be refurbished and the thermal protection panels on the exterior would be replaced, assuming a sea landing. [Photos: Japan's Robotic Space Cargo Ship Fleet]

A new rocket

While the HTV, and eventually the HTV-R, are launched on the H-IIB rocket, all three of the proposed manned vehicles - the two capsule variants and the mini-shuttle - would be launched by a newly proposed rocket called the H-X.

The H-X will be a new design with higher reliability for human-rated launches, and it's slated to become operational in the 2020s. Its prime contractor is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI).

Concept studies and research for key technologies have been carried out to decide the H-X baseline configuration and to assess its feasibility. As a result, a fully liquid propellant vehicle with a single two-stage core that uses a solid or liquid booster stage for heavy and geostationary orbit payloads is MHI's baseline design.

The H-X's engines will cluster together a higher-thrust evolution of JAXA's LE-7A engines called the LE-X, which is now in the research phase to verify its feasibility, safety, reliability and cost-effectiveness, officials say.

Suborbital point-to-point

Japan's spaceflight plans don't stop with the HTV-R evolutions and hopes for a mini-shuttle. JAXA also has a long-term reusable space plane feasibility study underway that includes a road map.

This road map envisions a rocket-powered suborbital point-to-point (PtoP) vehicle with a 1,242-mile (2,000 km) range, as well as another PtoP vehicle with a 6,213-mile (10,000 km) range and a fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit manned space plane.

The shorter-range PtoP vehicle is a rocket glider weighing 118,800 pounds (53,520 kg). It coasts toward its destinations after achieving a speed more than 14 times the speed of sound using staged combustion aerospace engines.

The longer-range PtoP craft has a waverider design and a total weight of 660,000 pounds (299,370 kg). It would also glide to its target after accelerating to hypersonic speeds - in this case, about five times the speed of sound - but it would be capable of longer hypersonic cruises. This hypersonic aircraft's design has a forebody that compresses the incoming air for the propulsion system, which combines a rocket with a ramjet.

Plans for the reusable two-stage-to-orbit manned space plane currently call for a vertical launch, though a horizontal takeoff may also be considered. In either case, both its booster stage and the 60-foot-long (18 m) orbiter it carries would land on a runway.

The vehicle exists only on paper at the moment. Howerver, JAXA is working toward ground-based engine tests and plans flight tests in five years or so.

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