OrbitalHub

NASA dixit:

“NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is in the midst of intense environmental testing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in preparation for its journey to the Sun. These tests simulate the noise and shaking the spacecraft will experience during its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, scheduled for 2018.

Parker Solar Probe’s integration and testing team must check over the spacecraft and systems to make sure everything is still in optimal working condition after experiencing these rigorous conditions – including a check of the solar arrays, which will provide electrical power to the spacecraft.

Parker Solar Probe will explore the Sun’s outer atmosphere and make critical observations that will answer decades-old questions about the physics of stars. The resulting data will also help improve how we forecast major eruptions on the Sun and subsequent space weather events that can impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space. The mission is named for Eugene N. Parker, whose profound insights into solar physics and processes have helped shape the field of heliophysics.”

Joy Ng (USRA): Producer

Sarah Frazier (ADNET SYSTEMS): Writer

Lee Hobson (APL): Videographer

Music credit: ‘Push Away’ by Andrew Michael Britton [PRS], David Stephen Goldsmith [PRS], Mikey Rowe [PRS] from Killer Tracks.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA dixit:

“NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik captured this footage with a GoPro camera on October 20, 2017 during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. Bresnik reflected on this quiet moment, ‘Sometimes on a #spacewalk, you just have to take a moment to enjoy the beauty of our planet Earth. This Go-Pro footage is from our spacewalk where Joe Acaba and I refurbished the Canadarm2 robotic arm and the Dextre robotic arm extension.'”

Video credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“The first flight of an advanced supersonic parachute system for Mars 2020—NASA’s next Mars rover. This video is narrated by Ian Clark, the test’s technical lead from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The test took place on October 4, 2017, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. At the moment of full inflation, the parachute is going 1.8 times the speed of sound or nearly 1,300 miles an hour, and generating nearly 35,000 pounds of drag force—drag that would be necessary to help slow a payload down as it was entering the Martian atmosphere. This is the first of several tests in support of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission.”

Video credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA Goddard dixit:

“A team of scientists led by Laura Hayes –a solar physicist who splits her time between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland – investigated a connection between solar flares and Earth’s atmosphere. They discovered pulses in the electrified layer of the atmosphere – called the ionosphere – mirrored X-ray oscillations during a July 24, 2016 flare.”

Genna Duberstein (USRA): Lead Producer

Kathalina Tran (Wyle Information Systems): Lead Science Writer

Jack Ireland (ADNET Systems): Scientist

Laura Hayes (Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland): Lead Scientist

Music: “Good Chat” by Richard Anthony D Pike

Video credit: NASA Goddard

NASA dixit:

“Early on the morning of Saturday, November 18, NASA successfully launched for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the first in a series of four advanced polar-orbiting satellites, equipped with next-generation technology and designed to improve the accuracy of U.S. weather forecasts out to seven days. The Joint Polar Satellite System-1 (JPSS-1) lifted off on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s central coast. JPSS-1 data will improve weather forecasting and help agencies involved with post-storm recovery by visualizing storm damage and the geographic extent of power outages.”

Video credit: ULA / NASA

NASA dixit:

“Though the Webb telescope will focus on stars and galaxies approximately 13.5 billion light-years away, its sight goes through a similar process as you would if you underwent laser vision correction surgery to be able to focus on an object 10 feet across the room. In orbit at Earth’s second Lagrange point (L2), far from the help of a terrestrial doctor, Webb will use its near-infrared camera (NIRCam) instrument to help align its primary mirror segments about 40 days after launch, once they have unfolded from their unaligned stowed position and cooled to their operating temperatures.

Laser vision correction surgery reshapes the cornea of the eye to remove imperfections that cause vision problems like nearsightedness. The cornea is the surface of the eye; it helps focus rays of light on the retina at the back of the eye, and though it appears to be uniform and smooth, it can be misshapen and pockmarked with dents, dimples, and other imperfections that can affect a person’s sight. The relative positioning of Webb’s primary mirror segments after launch will be the equivalent of these corneal imperfections, and engineers on Earth will need to make corrections to the mirrors’ positions to bring them into alignment, ensuring they will produce sharp, focused images.”

Eric Villard (InuTec, LLC): Writer

Michael McClare (KBRwyle): Producer

Michael P. Menzel (AIMM): Producer

Michael P. Menzel (AIMM): Video Editor

Video credit: NASA Goddard