OrbitalHub

Credits: ESA

The Kennedy Space Center has officially welcomed Node 3. Node 3 is a European-built module for the International Space Station (ISS). The prime contractor chosen for the job was Thales Alenia Space, in Turin, Italy.

Node 3 was transported from Italy by an Airbus Beluga aircraft. The aircraft left Turin on May 17, and arrived in Florida on May 20.

Node 3 is now being prepared for the journey to the ISS in the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) at KSC.

Node 3 is a connecting module. With a length of 6.7 m and 4.4 m in diameter, Node 3 will have a total mass of 19,000 kg once berthed to the ISS. Node 3 will eventually house the life support system necessary for the permanent crew of six on the space station. On one of its berthing ports, Node 3 will accommodate the Cupola. Node 3 also provides room for eight refrigerator-size racks. Two of these racks will be used by avionics systems controlling the node.

Credits: ESA

Cupola is an observation module. Once attached to Node 3, it will provide a pressurized observation and work area for two ISS crew members. Cupola will allow the crew to control the space station remote manipulator system through the robotic workstation. Cupola has a mass of 1,880 kg, a height of 1.5 m, and it has a maximum diameter of 2.9 m. The windows are protected by a Micro-meteorid and orbital Debris Protection System (MDPS), which consists of shutters made out of aluminum coated with Kevlar.

Node 3 will be launched inside the Orbiter cargo bay, mounted on a pallet via a Manual Berthing Mechanism, and transferred to the Node location using the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System.

“Node 3 represents a turning point for the International Space Station,” said Simonetta Di Pippo, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight. “By having accomplished the development of the ISS modules and by completing its assembly in the months to come we open a new avenue of cooperation and exploration that will take humankind back to the Moon and beyond to other destinations while continuing to exploit the enormous possibilities in low Earth orbit.”

Credits: ESA

NASA has chosen the name Tranquility for Node 3, after the Sea of Tranquility, landing site of Apollo 11 in 1969. Colbert had to settle for having one of the treadmills onboard ISS named after him.

Node 3 and Cupola are scheduled to be delivered to the ISS by STS-130 Space Shuttle Endeavour in early 2010.

You can find out more about Node 3 and Cupola on the page dedicated to the ISS on ESA’s web site.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). While Hubble looks at the sky in the visible and ultraviolet light, JWST will operate in the infrared. JWST is a joint mission of NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency.

The project started in 1996 and was initially known as the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). In 2002, the project was renamed the James Webb Space Telescope in honor of NASA administrator James E. Webb, who led the agency from February 1961 to October 1968.

Read more about JWST…

Credits: NASA/ESA/STScI

Carnival of Space #106 is hosted by Brian Wang at Next Big Future.

This week you can read about the Catalytic Nuclear Fusion Interstellar Ramjet, an analysis of antimatter propulsion, the aging Global Positioning System, an interview with Dr. Andrew Drake, online lunar maps at the LPI, a full-scale mockup of the Altair lunar lander, and much more.

OrbitalHub presents Hubble – Imaging Space And Time, a book authored by David DeVorkin and Robert W. Smith.

Credits: NASA/ESA

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a joint creation of NASA, ESA, hundreds of industrial companies, government and university groups, and thousands of engineers and scientists. Since April 1990, when it was released into orbit from Discovery’s payload bay, Hubble has returned scientific data and stunning images of stars, nebulae, and distant galaxies.

The construction of the space telescope began in the 1980s, when the optics company Perkin-Elmer initiated the work on Hubble’s primary light-collecting mirror. The Hubble Space Telescope was completed in 1985, but was not deployed in Earth’s orbit for another five years.

In 1983, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) was founded and it assumed from NASA the science management of the Hubble Space Telescope. STScI is located at Johns Hopkins University.

In its initial configuration, Hubble carried the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC), the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS), the Faint Object Camera (FOC), and the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS). It was soon to be discovered that the primary mirror had a flaw, and that the space telescope suffered from blurry vision.

The Hubble Servicing Mission 1 installed a corrective optics package, COSTAR, and replaced the original WF/PC with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Hubble Servicing Mission 2 replaced the GHRS and FOS with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). Servicing Mission 3A replaced all six gyroscopes, a Fine Guidance Sensor, and the onboard computer. Servicing Mission 3B saw the installation of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which replaced the FOC, and the revival of NICMOS through the installation of a new cooling system.

All this, and the history of astronomic discoveries beginning with Galileo Galilei in 1609 and continued by William Herschel, William Huggins, George Ellery Hale, and Edwin Hubble, are presented in Hubble – Imaging Space And Time, a book authored by David DeVorkin and Robert W. Smith. The book is replete with spectacular images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Images of Carina Nebula, Eagle Nebula, Orion Nebula, and Swan Nebula, just to name a few, are a celebration of color and convey the majestic beauty of the Cosmos.

David DeVorkin is curator of the history of astronomy and the space sciences at the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Among other books he has authored are Beyond Earth: Mapping the Universe and The Hubble Space Telescope: Imaging the Universe.

Robert W. Smith is a professor of history and Director of the Science, Technology and Society Program at the University of Alberta. He is also the author of The Space Telescope: A Study of NASA, Science, Technology and Politics, The Hubble Space Telescope: Imaging the Universe, and The Expanding Universe.

Credits: British Interplanetary Society

Carnival of Space #105 is hosted by Ian O’Neill at Space Disco.

This week you can read about STEREO, plans for manned missions to Mercury (sunscreen must be in the inventory box), the Virtual Astronomy Metadata Project, rotating space elevators, interstellar probes, presence of water on the surface of Mars, and much more.

Credits: ESA

After a successful launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia by a Rockot launch vehicle, GOCE has to go through a number of preparation stages before becoming operational and starting to collect three-dimensional gravity data all over the globe.

On April 6, 2009, the GOCE’s propulsion system was switched on. The system was confirmed to be operating normally. Two days later, on April 8, 2009, the gradiometer was switched on as well. The instrument started to produce data instantly.

“With the ion engine and the gradiometer working, we have started to tune the satellite and its instruments,” GOCE System Manager Michael Fehringer said.

The payload, an Electrostatic Gravity Gradiometer, consists of six accelerometers mounted in pairs on three perpendicular axes on an ultra-stable carbon-carbon structure. Measurements of the tiny differences in the readings from the accelerometer pairs will render very accurate results for the geoid altitude and the detection of gravity-field anomalies.

Given the unique payload onboard the spacecraft, GOCE has to provide an undisturbed environment for the instruments. Two additional accelerometers mounted on the velocity axes will control the two low-power xenon ion engines in order to compensate for the atmospheric drag. The ion engines each can provide only 1 to 20 milli-Newtons of thrust, which does not sound like very much, but it is enough to overcome the drag experienced by the spacecraft in orbit.

GOCE has been losing altitude at a rate of 150m to 200m a day, until May 26, 2009, when the spacecraft entered the drag-free mode.

Rune Floberghagen, ESA’s GOCE Mission Manager, stated that, “Knowing that the drag-free control system works perfectly means we now have everything in place to carry out the complex process of calibrating the gradiometer instrument. Once calibration has been completed we will be able to see the true excellence of GOCE’s gravity-field measurements.”

The instruments have to undergo a further six weeks of commissioning and calibration. Mission operations are scheduled to start in summer 2009.

You can read more about the GOCE mission on the dedicated page on ESA’s web site.