OrbitalHub

The place where space exploration, science, and engineering meet

Space exploration in a bytestream

NASA Remembers Fallen Heroes

They will always be remembered...

Apollo 1 (January 27, 1967)
Virgil "Gus" Grissom - Commander, Edward White - Command Pilot, Roger Chaffee - Pilot

STS-51 L (January 28, 1986)
Francis R. Scobee - Commander, Michael J. Smith - Pilot, Judith A. Resnik - Mission Specialist 1, Ellison Onizuka - Mission Specialist 2, Ronald E. McNair - Mission Specialist 3, Gregory B. Jarvis - Payload Specialist 1, Sharon Christa McAuliffe - Payload Specialist 2

STS-107 (February 1, 2003)
Rick D. Husband - Commander, William C. McCool - Pilot, Michael P. Anderson - Payload Commander, David M. Brown - Mission Specialist 1, Kalpana Chawla - Mission Specialist 2, Laurel Clark - Mission Specialist 3, Ilan Ramon - Payload Specialist 1

Posted: 2010-01-31

The best of OrbitalHub

How Tough is Life in LEO?
Posted on 2010-09-07
The space environment definitely poses big challenges to spacecraft design engineers. From 1971 to 1989, more than 2,700 spacecraft anomalies related to interactions with the space environment were recorded.
A 3 mm particle moving at 10 km/s has the kinetic energy of a bowling ball moving at 100 km/h. A 1 cm fragment has the kinetic energy of a 180 kg safe.
This year, the Kalman filter, an essential part of the development of space technology, has its 50th anniversary.
Q&A With Les Johnson
Posted on 2010-05-15
Les Johnson, the Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at MSFC, recently took the time to answer a few questions for OrbitalHub readers.
CryoSat-2
Posted on 2010-02-21
CryoSat-2 will provide accurate data so that a precise rate of change of the sea and land ice thickness can be determined.
Solar Dynamics Observatory
Posted on 2010-02-07
The Solar Dynamics Observatory is one of NASA’s Living With a Star missions.
Sentinel
Posted on 2010-01-17
GMES was born as the result of a growing need for accurate and accessible information about the environment, climate change, and civil security.
Icarus, Son of Daedalus
Posted on 2009-12-31
Icarus, a new theoretical study of a mission to another star, builds on the solid base of the Daedalus project, a project conducted in the 1970’s.
PROBA-2
Posted on 2009-09-14
PROBA-2 is part of an ESA's ITDP program, which is dedicated to the demonstration of innovative technologies.
Mike Deliman, Senior Engineering Specialist at Wind River Systems, answered a few questions related to VxWorks MILS Platform 2.0.
GRAIL is a mission that will measure the lunar gravity field in unprecedented detail.
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer or WISE is a NASA-funded scientific research project that will provide an all-sky survey in the mid-infrared wavelength range.

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The video of the week

C2-Class Solar Flare
Posted on 2012-01-09
Soyuz TMA-03M Docking
Posted on 2011-12-27
Stratolaunch Systems
Posted on 2011-12-13
MSL Launch
Posted on 2011-11-29
Asteroid 2005 YU55
Posted on 2011-11-21
Soyuz TMA-22 Docking
Posted on 2011-11-16
SLS/Orion Concepts
Posted on 2011-11-15
J-2X Firing Test
Posted on 2011-11-10
NPP Launch
Posted on 2011-10-29
Hurricane Rina
Posted on 2011-10-25
YouTube Space Lab
Posted on 2011-10-10
M-Class Solar Flare
Posted on 2011-10-06

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Latest blog posts

ASX 2012 Symposium in Toronto
Posted on 2012-01-09
The University of Toronto Astronomy and Space Exploration Society (ASX) announced its 9th annual symposium. The ASX symposium is an event that aims to educate the public on space exploration related topics. Past symposium speakers include the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, Anousheh Ansari, and Dr. Carolyn Porco.
A team at the Space Systems Design Studio, Cornell University, focuses on Sprite, a simple, feasible design of spacecraft systems printed on small wafers of silicon. This design packages traditional spacecraft systems onto a single silicon microchip.
Underground Astronomy
Posted on 2011-08-22
When Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, he did not receive it for his contributions to the understanding of gravity through his theory of relativity… actually he received it for a paper he wrote in annus mirabilis 1905 on the law of the photoelectric effect. At that time, relativity and the new perspective on gravity offered by Einstein’s theory was so controversial that the Nobel Prize Committee members chose to protect their reputations and felt that it would be appropriate to award Einstein the Nobel Prize for “his services to theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”. One hundred years later, the theory of relativity is part of second-year University curriculum and reputations are safe.
Juno
Posted on 2011-08-01
Juno is a NASA spacecraft scheduled to start its journey to Jupiter in a few days. Juno will help scientists understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. While the dense cover of clouds helps Jupiter keep its secrets away from Earth observers, Juno will get close enough to Jupiter so that fundamental processes and conditions characteristic to the early solar system will be revealed.
Interplanetary Internet
Posted on 2011-07-26
You know the frustration you experience when the new hit of your favorite band takes too long to download on your iPhone? Imagine 30 years from now (an optimistic estimate)… you are one of the happy colonists who work around the clock to build one of the first outposts on Mars. At the end of your shift in the hydroponics, you head back to your luxurious 20mx10m quarters (the shoebox, as your relatives back on Earth like to call it), have a hot shower, and a delicious vegetarian dinner while enjoying the view over the Valles Marineris (the $100 million view, as you like to call it).
MDA (MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.) is a Canadian company that was incorporated in 1969 by two British Columbia entrepreneurs, John MacDonald and Werner Dettwiler. The company offers a broad spectrum of services. Currently, MDA is developing a Space Infrastructure Servicing (SIS) spacecraft that would operate as a refueling depot for communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
There are numerous examples of successful implementation of mitigation measures, but also some not so successful, and even failures. There are two cases that I will mention, one from each camp.
Excavation is a necessary first step towards extracting resources from the lunar regolith and building human settlements on the moon. NASA’s Lunabotics Mining Competition is designed to promote the development of interest in lunar regolith mining, which is especially challenging due to the unique properties of the lunar regolith, reduced gravity, and vacuum.
We can identify two categories of risks associated with mitigation methods: operational risks and risks associated with re-entry. Operational risks are linked to three major factors. The first is the limited amount of information that satellite operators are willing to share, in some cases for national security reasons. The second is that satellites can trespass into the operating space of other satellites. Finally, decreased reliability due to implementation of mitigation measures can cause partial or complete loss of control of satellites, which drift from designated orbits.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has implemented the UN Space Debris Mitigation guidelines in a number of standards.
Canada is actively involved in space debris mitigation research and development activities. Canada hosted the International Conference on Protection of Materials and Structures from the Space Environment (ICPMSE) in May 2008, and contributed to the 37th Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Scientific Assembly in July 2008.
Let us see how the areas mentioned in the previous Sustainability in LEO post are covered at national level in the United States.
Space debris mitigation measures address issues in two major areas: protection from space debris and reduction of the space debris population growth.
Only a small fraction of the existing space debris population is detectable and tracked by ground systems. A smaller fraction is catalogued by special programs and/or departments of national space agencies. This is where statistics comes into play. Numerous models have been created in order to assess present collision risks associated with certain orbits and to predict future evolution of the debris environment around Earth.

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