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| Credits: NASA/JPL |
Carnival of Space #126 is hosted by Jason Perry at The Gish Bar Times.
The blog posts cover topics like LCROSS and Kaguya missions, the final report of the Augustine Commission, the potential of moonbases, the Space Elevator Games beaming competition, a new geologic map of the volcano Prometheus on Io, a new visualization of the Chandra Source Catalog, and much more.
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| Credits: ESA |
A Rockot launch vehicle lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia on November 2, 2009, at 02:50 CET. Rockot carried to orbit two new ESA satellites: SMOS and PROBA-2.
SMOS was released by the Breeze-KM upper stage some 70 minutes after the launch. After arriving at a lower orbit, the upper stage released Proba-2 around three hours after the launch.
The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, which is the second Earth Explorer Opportunity mission to be developed as part of ESA’s Living Planet Program, will provide global maps of moisture over the Earth’s landmasses and salinity over the oceans. These observations will improve our understanding of hydrology and ocean circulation patterns.
PROBA-2 is part of an ESA program called In-Orbit Technology Demonstration Program, which is dedicated to the demonstration of innovative technologies. The PROBA-2 payload consists of scientific instruments that will make observations of the Sun in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum and will measure certain properties of the plasma surrounding the spacecraft.
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| Credits: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab |
Carnival of Space #125 is hosted by Robert Simpson at Orbiting Frog.
This week you can read about superconducting magnets used to enable hyperdrive propulsion, the LCROSS mission, surprising early results from the IBEX mission, the Kepler mission, variable stars, affordable microgravity research on the International Space Station, and much more.
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| Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab |
On November 13, 2009, the Rosetta spacecraft will swing by Earth for the last time. This maneuver will provide the boost needed by the spacecraft to reach the outer Solar System. The critical swingby events are described on ESA’s web site.
Rosetta’s mission began on March 2nd, 2004, when the spacecraft lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana. In order to optimize the use of fuel, the probe has a very complicated trajectory to reach its final target, the comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The long trajectory includes three Earth-gravity assists (2004, 2007, and 2009) and one at Mars (2007). The probe uses the gravity wells of Earth and Mars to accelerate to the speed needed for the rendezvous with the comet.
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| Credits: HMCT/Giotto/ESA/MPAE |
Carnival of Space #124 is hosted at We are all in the gutter, looking at the stars.
This week you can see an interesting picture of our nearest galactic neighbour Andromeda, you can read about the discovery of a new ring around Saturn, Halley’s Comet, sunspots, Orbital Gun Launch Systems, Skylab Orbital Workshop, and much more.
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| Credits: NASA |
Carnival of Space #123 is hosted by Chris Dann at Weird Warp.
This week you can read about space tourism, the Messenger spacecraft, the Cassini mission, the Mars Science Laboratory, heliospheric crossings and their consequences, space travel, nanotechnology, the space elevator, and much more.
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