Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 223

Elon Musk is getting closer to being the real life Tony Stark, with his private rocket launch service SpaceX requesting permission from the government to launch a "massive satellite network that would provide high-speed, global internet coverage", reports Reuters.

SpaceX would eventually launch 4425 satellites, with Musk predicting it would cost at least $10 billion, and that was nearly two years ago when he first announced the project in January 2015. The latest details on the project include technical detailed of the proposed network, but there isn't a mention of the costs involved.

The financial backers of SpaceX include Alphabet's Google Inc and Fidelity Investments, who have pumped over $1 billion into Elon Musk's space company. SpaceX will launch around 800 satellites at first, which will cover the United Spaces, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. SpaceX said in technical documents that it filed to the government: "The system is designed to provide a wide range of broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, institutional, government and professional users worldwide".

Expedition 50 launched today on a two-day trip to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying Peggy Whitson of NASA, Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency), is scheduled to dock with the Space Station's Rassvet module on Saturday, November 19th.

The crew will be welcomed by astronaut Shane Kimbrough and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko, who arrived at the Station a month ago.

The night of November 14th was reserved for a spectacular sight in our sky - the Supermoon. NASA published amazing images that show how beautiful the Supermoon was.

A Supermoon occurs when the Moon's orbit is closest (perigee) to Earth.

Moonrise over the Syr Darya river, Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Tonight, the night of November 14th we'll get to witness a spectacular sight in our sky - the Supermoon. The full Moon of November 14th is not only the closest full Moon of 2016 but also the closest full Moon to date in the 21st century. The full Moon won't come this close to Earth again until November 25, 2034. The last time the full Moon was this close to Earth was in 1948.

NASA explained this phenomenon.

The biggest and brightest Moon for observers in the United States will be on Monday morning just before dawn.

Elon Musk thinks they have finally solved the mystery of their September's Falcon 9 explosion. Speaking with CNBC, he stated that the explosion was caused by a "really surprising problem that's never been encountered before in the history of rocketry."

Just last week, Musk said that the cause of the explosion is one of the toughest puzzles the company has ever had to solve.

The explosion caused complications for NASA since SpaceX was supposed to transfer cargo to International Space Station. However, Orbital ATK stepped in and performed their first successful launch since October 2014 when the rocket failed, and the vehicle and payload were destroyed causing $15 million in damage.

The United States presidential election of 2016 is scheduled for Tuesday, November 8th, 2016. The astronauts aboard the International Space Station also have the ability to vote from space thanks to a bill passed by the Texas legislature in 1997.

For astronauts, the voting process starts a year before launch, when astronauts can select which elections (local/state/federal) that they want to participate in while in space. Then, six months before the election, astronauts are provided with a standard form: the "Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request - Federal Post Card Application."

Voting in space was first used the same year it was implemented, in 1997. NASA's astronaut David Wolf became the first American to vote from space, casting a ballot in a 1997 local election. At the time, he was aboard the Russian Mir Space Station.

Fans of astronomy should prepare for November 14th when they'll have the opportunity to enjoy a rare Supermoon.

The full Moon of November 14th is not only the closest full Moon of 2016 but also the closest full Moon to date in the 21st century. The full Moon won't come this close to Earth again until November 25, 2034. The last time the full Moon was this close to Earth was in 1948.

NASA says the Supermoon will appear about 14% larger and 30% brighter than the normal full Moon.

The International Space Station has been continuously inhabited for 5,844 days since Expedition 1's crew of three arrived there on this day in 2000.

Expedition 1 consisted of an astronaut Bill Shepherd and two cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev. They arrived at the Space Station on November 2nd, 2000, 16 years ago. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the Station which continues to this day. The trio spent 136 days aboard the Station.

Leonardo DiCaprio's National Geographic documentary Before The Flood premiered two days ago and in case you missed it, you can watch it for free on YouTube.

The entire documentary talks about the fossil fuel industry and the effect it has on our planet, explains the devastating consequences, and tries to find a solution for inevitable climate change, who's effects we are already witnessing.

Elon Musk appears in the documentary (he also appeared in Racing Extinction, which you should watch if you haven't already) and leads DiCaprio trough Tesla's Gigafactory in Nevada.

NASA has published amazing images of Expedition 49 crew members landing in Kazahstan on Sunday. NASA astronaut and Expedition 49 crew member Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency returned to Earth after a successful mission aboard the International Space Station.

Russian Search and Rescue teams fly to Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan to prepare for the Soyuz MS-01 landing with Expedition 49 crew members.

The city of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan is seen from a Russian Search and Rescue helicopter.

After 115 days in space, they are back! NASA astronaut and Expedition 49 crew member Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency returned to Earth after a successful mission aboard the International Space Station.

The Expedition 49 crewmates touched down in their Soyuz MS-01 at 11:58 PM EDT (9:58 AM October 30, Kazakhstan time) southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

Rubins and Onishi have each spent a total of 115 days in space during their first mission. Ivanishin now has 280 days in space from two flights.

Expedition 49 Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are scheduled to depart the International Space Station today, October 29th.

Their Soyuz spacecraft will undock from the Space Station at 8:37 PM EDT and land in Kazakhstan at 11:59 PM (9:59 AM October 30th, Kazakhstan time).

Their return will wrap up 115 days in space for the crew since their launch in July.

NASA's Kepler has made yet another astonishing discovery, just in time for Halloween - pumpkin stars.

Astronomers using observations from NASA's Kepler and Swift missions have discovered a batch of rapidly spinning stars that produce X-rays at more than a hundred times the peak levels ever seen from the Sun. The stars spin so fast they've been squashed into pumpkin-like shapes. Scientists believe they are the result of close binary systems where two Sun-like stars merge.

Steve Howell, a senior research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and leader of the team explained the discovery.

NASA has provided new details of the scene near the Martian equator where Europe's Schiaparelli test lander hit the surface last week.

The new images show three impact locations within about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) from each other.

The ESA lost contact with its Schiaparelli lander shortly before it was supposed to land on Mars on October 19th. Last week, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter identified markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are related to Europe's Schiaparelli test lander.

You better get into all of your games and save them, do your back ups and run into your doomsday bunker - because scientists writing in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific have found unusual signals coming from a group of stars that are "signals probably from extraterrestrial intelligence".

The scientists said that these signals "have exactly the shape of a signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this [extraterrestrial intelligence] hypothesis". Their paper is called "Discovery of peculiar periodic spectral modulations in a small fraction of solar type stars," which talks about their hypothesis that these signals are from some form of ETI, or alien intelligence.

E.F. Borra and E. Trottier, the paper's authors, write: "The fact that they are only found in a very small fraction of stars within a narrow spectral range centered near the spectral type of the sun is also in agreement with the ETI hypothesis". They added: "At this stage, this hypothesis needs to be confirmed with further work. Although unlikely, there is also a possibility that the signals are due to highly peculiar chemical compositions in a small fraction of galactic halo stars".

The ESA lost contact with its Schiaparelli lander shortly before it was supposed to land on Mars on October 19th, and now the mystery of what happened to it has been resolved. Like we previously noted, there was a chance that the lander ditched its parachute too early and crashed onto the surface of Red Planet.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified new markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are believed to be related to Europe's Schiaparelli test lander. The new image shows a bright spot that may be Schiaparelli's parachute, and a larger dark spot interpreted as resulting from the impact of the lander itself following a much longer free fall than planned after thrusters switched off prematurely.

Elon Musk held an AMA or "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit, where he answered questions strictly related to SpaceX, and not his other companies. The session came almost a month after his presentation at the International Astronautical Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico on September 27th, where he gave details about SpaceX's plans for the colonization of Mars.

Many users wanted to know about the rockets that SpaceX will use to get first people to Mars and Interplanetary Transport System. Musk pointed out that the ITS is designed for a maximum acceleration of 20 Gs, but the spaceship would be limited to around 5 G's nominal, but able to take peak loads 2 to 3 times higher without breaking up.

Musk also believes that the Falcon 9 rockets will be used indefinitely.

Elon Musk will host an AMA or "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit today, October 23rd, at 6 PM EDT (3 PM PDT). Standard subreddit rules will apply in the AMA thread and the users have been warned to follow the rules and not to ask questions already submitted.

The questions and answers will be on the SpaceX subreddit, meaning you can ask questions related to SpaceX, and not Tesla Motors or SolarCity. Musk also pointed out that he will be answering SpaceX related questions.

If you have a question for Tesla's and SpaceX's CEO, don't miss out on the opportunity to ask him something. I'm sure the thread will be interesting and Musk has a lot of stuff to address, from his plans to colonize Mars to the recent Falcon 9 explosion.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos have arrived at the International Space Station after a two-day trip.

Their Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft docked with the Station's Poisk module at 5:52 AM EDT. When hatches between the Soyuz and Space Station opened at 8:20 AM EDT, the three crew members joined Expedition 49 Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who have been aboard ISS since July. The International Space Station now has six occupants.

Kimbrough, Ryzhikov, and Borisenko will spend a little more than four months aboard the Space Station, and their return to Earth is scheduled for late February. The crew members will contribute to more than 250 research experiments ongoing aboard the space station, in diverse fields such as biology, Earth Science, human research, physical sciences and technology development.

After more than 12 years studying Saturn, its rings and moons, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has entered the final year of its epic voyage. The conclusion of the historic scientific odyssey is planned for September 2017.

Now, the Cassini spacecraft revealed dramatic seasonal changes in the atmospheric temperature and composition of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The images show a vortex in the upper atmosphere over the south pole. Cassini also discovered gasses in this vortex that are otherwise quite rare in Titan's atmosphere.

Athena Coustenis, a member of Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer team at the Observatoire de Paris, explained the importance of this discovery.