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December 23, 2009: The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery. "Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. "This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all." The discovery has implications for the future when the solar system will...

Butte-Silver Bow County will erect a permanent building in its TIFID for the testing of rocket engines. Kristen Rosa, administrator of the Tax Increment Finance Industrial District, said that the steel-sided structure could be in operation by next spring. "It will help them be able to test bigger and bigger rocket engines," Rosa said. (cut) Space Propulsion Group Inc., a Stanford University-affiliated company, visited Butte a number of times last year to test fuels used in hybrid rockets. The approximately eight-second tests were done on the smaller 11-inch models, but thanks to the new building companies will be able to...

Yesterday, Dec. 22nd at approximately 0455 UT, magnetic fields around sunspot 1036 erupted, producing a C7-class solar flare. NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft was almost directly above the sunspot at the time of the blast and recorded this extreme ultraviolet movie: The shadowy wave racing away from the blast site is a "solar tsunami"--a swell of hot, magnetized plasma about 100,000 km high packing as much energy as a million megatons of TNT. The tsunami petered out before it went more than halfway around the sun, but another manifestation of the blast is still going. The eruption hurled a faint coronal mass...

NASA’s managers have settled on a fix they say will protect astronauts from potentially dangerous levels of vibrations that could otherwise reach the planned Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle during its climb to orbit atop the Ares 1 rocket, according to information posted on a NASA Web site. NASA Constellation program officials decided Dec. 17 to update the Ares 1 vehicle design to include upper-plane C-spring isolators and an upper-stage liquid oxygen (LOX) damper intended to keep vibrations originating in the Ares 1 main stage from reaching Orion and its crew. The Constellation program is a 5-year-old effort to replace the...

HAT CREEK, CALIF. -- The wide dishes, 20 feet across and raised high on their pedestals, creaked and groaned as the winds from an approaching snowstorm pushed into this highland valley. Forty-two in all, the radio telescopes laid out in view of some of California's tallest mountains look otherworldly, and now their sounds conjured up visions of deep-space denizens as well.

Next year could be a milestone for space exploration. The world's major spacefaring nations should be fleshing out plans for a new era of collaborative missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. And, finally, the UK - that ancient island of world explorers and landmark scientists - looks set to join them.

There was a lot of excitement last week about the discovery of a “waterworld” planet called GJ 1214b, as reported on Discovery News by my colleague Ian O’Neill. This world belongs to an emerging class of planets dubbed “super-Earths.” It is 6.5 times Earth’s mass and nearly three times our diameter. Its mass, diameter and density suggest the planet is largely a ball of water with and icy/rocky core.

NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize program, FAA’s Spaceports Infrastructure Grants initiative, and the new NASA Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research program (CRuSR) gained momentum after receiving funding in the NASA and FAA appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2010, passed by Congress and signed by the President last week. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation conducted advocacy efforts for these NASA and FAA programs as part of the CSF’s legislative agenda for this year.

What a welcome event the release of James Cameron’s new film Avatar must be for scientists working on the question of exomoons — satellites orbiting extrasolar planets. Imagine being a Lisa Kaltenegger (CfA) or David Kipping (University College London), hard at work exploring exomoon detection and possible habitability when a blockbuster film is released that posits a habitable moon around a gas giant. The film’s exomoon, called Pandora, fits a scenario that exomoon hunters tell us could exist, orbiting a giant planet in the habitable zone of its star, and it draws public attention as never before to exoplanet and...

WASHINGTON — Fearful that the White House might scale back manned space exploration, a bipartisan group of lawmakers slipped a provision into a massive government spending package last week that would force President Barack Obama to seek congressional approval for any changes to the ambitious Bush-era, back-to-the-moon program.

IN Silicon Valley we have a saying: launch early, launch often. It’s an acknowledgment that successful, innovative companies are the ones that rapidly try new ideas, see what works, improve their products and repeat. Businesses that launch frequently are also able to take advantage of economies of scale to make launchings faster and easier. In many ways, the key to innovation is speed of execution.

The Obama administration appears set to chart a new course for U.S. space exploration by promoting the use of private companies to ferry astronauts into orbit, according to people familiar with the matter.

Why should humans go to Mars? Many reasons for and against have been cited over the years, and many still struggle to see the relevance of this priority. It seems so far out, so detached from life on Earth, and in many ways it is. Mars is physically hundreds of millions of kilometers away. It is colder than the coldest environment on Earth and it has an atmosphere—or lack thereof—that would kill you within thirty seconds or do in a most unpleasant fashion. Compared to terrestrial destinations it loses hands down. However, we need to look at Mars in a...

Although the Augustine Commission did not offer up “recommendations” – it is clear they want NASA to focus on moving beyond low earth orbit – creating some space – if you will – for entrepreneurs to boldly go where only the government has gone before.

But just what kind of candle will U.S. astronauts be strapped onto in the post space shuttle era? NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden dropped into the White House the other day – and met with the President Obama to talk about what is next for the space agency.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences Corp. a $75 million contract to develop the final design for a radically new space architecture in which traditional, large spacecraft are replaced by clusters of wirelessly connected orbiting modules. Dubbed System F6, short for Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying spacecraft, Orbital’s design was selected among four competing study contracts issued in 2008 and 2009, according to a Dec. 18 company news release. The new contract is valued at $74.6 million over a one-year period. Gregg Burgess, Orbital’s vice president for national security systems in the company’s Advanced...

"Everyone loves a good road movie, whether it's Hope and Crosby or Fonda and Hopper. But the scope of those films pales in comparison to the ground covered by the Hayden Planetarium's new video, The Known Universe. The video starts in Tibet and zooms out through time and space until it shows well, the entire known universe. The video, created for the new Rubin Art Museum exhibit Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, uses over a decade of data collected by researchers at the planetarium. Called the Digital Universe Atlas, the data encompasses the...

FYI, The NASA press release below refers to 'holiday' or 'seasons' greetings six times. No mention of Christmas, of course. [comment deleted]! In a bizarre historical turnabout, religious activity on the space station has now become almost entirely dominated by the Russians. They fly icons blessed by priests (http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=6673) Photos: http://hochu.vkosmos.ru/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ikona.jpeg and http://www.svet-valaama.ru/photoalbom/2006_05_icon_from_space/2006_05_icon_from_space_01.jpg Also http://www.interfax-religion.ru/img/2308.jpg I haven't seen anything remotely similar from the American side. What have I missed? For the next manned launch this Sunday, also expect Russian Orthodox priests from the newly-built church in Baykonur (news story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10729300) to bless the rocket and the crew. File photo: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Mp59h1-TVgE/SsKiot99hvI/AAAAAAAAAnA/1QV6t9vIfrs/s400/Best+Soyuz+Bless.jpg...

President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, ScienceInsider has learned. The president chose the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft. The current NASA plan for human exploration is built around the $3.5 billion...

WASHINGTON — Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was personally skeptical of manned space missions and warned that NASA's future funding could depend on whether it was likely to create jobs. Pelosi vowed "harsh scrutiny" of all spending requests and said she would be asking "what is the mission? How will the money effectively be spent, in what period of time, to create jobs, compared to what?"

Think of a space agency and what comes to mind is probably the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Moon landing achievements. The UK government's decision to have its own NASA may thus look like a step towards a bold national future in the cosmos, but reality is likely to be much closer to the ground. The UK government's 10 Decemberannouncement that it would form an executive agency for space comes after years of reviews about what more the country could do for spaceflight, and the government has an enthusiastic space champion in its minister of state for science...

SAN FRANCISCO — When the sun is relatively inactive — as it has been in recent years — the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere cools dramatically, new observations find.

A rocky and water-rich planet, not much heftier than our own, has been discovered so close to our solar system that astronomers one day may be able to study its atmosphere.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to human spaceflight during a Dec. 16 meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, but details of what path the president wants the space agency to take are not expected until the White House submits its 2011 budget request to Congress in February, according to government officials. Aerospace industry sources with close ties to the Obama administration said in advance of the Oval Office meeting that Bolden had prepared four options for the president to consider, all of which were said to include some variation of the so-called “Flexible Path” scenario a...

PARIS — European Space Agency (ESA) governments on Dec. 17 gave final approval to a two-part Mars exploration program to be conducted with NASA, confirming their commitment to spend 850 million euros ($1.23 billion) on missions in 2016 and 2018, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said.

Richard Branson's new commercial spacecraft, Enterprise, will transport the musicians to just outside the Earth's atmosphere where they can enjoy about 5 minutes of weightlessness and time to play one hit song.

WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama Dec. 16 to discuss options for the future of manned spaceflight activities and investments, according to the president’s daily schedule released by the White House. The meeting is slated to occur at 3:05 p.m. today in the Oval Office. Bolden and senior administration officials have spent the past several months mulling the findings of a blue-ribbon panel that found the agency’s Constellation program, a five-year-old effort to replace the space shuttle with rockets and spacecraft optimized for the Moon, is incompatible with NASA’s budget. The panel, lead...

Astronomers announced today the discovery of at least four — and as many as six — planets orbiting two nearby stars. These planets are relatively low mass, ranging from 5 to 25 times the mass of the Earth. For comparison, Jupiter is over 300 times more massive than the Earth, and Uranus 15 times our mass. Three of these extrasolar planets orbit the nearby star 61 Virginis, which is only about 28 light years away (that’s a stone’s throw in galactic terms). 61 Vir has been a target for planet hunters for some time because it’s very much like our...

WASHINGTON — The commercial spaceflight company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) said this month that it expects to launch its cargo-carrying Dragon spacecraft on a maiden flight to the International Space Station (ISS) sometime between May and November 2010.

The report of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (the Augustine Committee) formed by the Office of Science and Technology Policy is truly exciting and inspiring. But that is hard to tell from its title, its text, or listening to the folks presenting it. It is dry, technical, and full of caveats. Nor would you know it from the media coverage — which is mostly about the negatives of NASA not having enough money.

An international team of planet hunters has discovered as many as six low-mass planets around two nearby Sun-like stars, including two "super-Earths" with masses 5 and 7.5 times the mass of Earth. The researchers, led by Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said the two "super-Earths" are the first ones found around Sun-like stars.

If there’s one thing that the Virgin Group, the umbrella of companies that includes Virgin Galactic, is known for, it’s putting on a spectacle. The company has, over the years, refined the art of doing events designed to maximize public interest and media attention. It’s something that had its roots in the company’s need to compete against rival companies with bigger advertising budgets, but has since become a hallmark of Virgin itself.

Friday is a travel day for me, so be aware that comment moderation will be slow and sporadic. I just have time to get in word about the upcoming launch of the WISE mission, slated for December 7. NASA is planning a media briefing next Tuesday (November 17) to discuss the mission, which is designed to scan the entire sky at infrared wavelengths, spotting perhaps hundreds of thousands of asteroids and studying a wide range of stars and galaxies.The technology is fascinating in and of itself. WISE will image the entire sky in the infrared, using detectors kept below 15...

For those in a clear and dark part of the world, the Geminids will continue this evening. Rates of 100 meteors per hour, with possible peaks of 140-150 per hour. Geminids are characterized by being slow moving and white, with the possibility of some fairly large fireballs! Happy gazing!

The giant gold and silver satellite glittered against the black sky as space shuttle Atlantis closed in on it from below. Commander Hoot Gibson and pilot Guy Gardner flew the approach, while mission specialist Mike Mullane, at the other end of the flight deck, readied the shuttle’s robot arm for a capture. Downstairs in the airlock, mission specialists Jerry Ross and Bill Shepherd waited in their spacesuits for Gibson’s order to go outside and attempt a rescue. The mission of STS-27 had been to deploy the first in a series of new spy satellites that used radar to observe ground...

WASHINGTON — Congress and the White House have signaled that they envision sharply different futures for NASA and its manned space mission. At an aerospace luncheon, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said President Barack Obama wants the agency to embrace “more international cooperation” after the space-shuttle era ends in 2010 and hinted that its Constellation moon-rocket program could see major changes. But hours earlier, congressional appropriators reached a different conclusion, approving legislative language declaring that any change to Constellation, which aims to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 but is running well behind schedule, must first get the approval of...

Russia has reneged on an agreement to deliver a total of 10 kilograms of plutonium-238 to the United States in 2010 and 2011 and is insisting on a new deal for the costly material vital to NASA’s deep space exploration plans. The move follows the U.S. Congress’ denial of President Barack Obama’s request for $30 million in 2010 to permit the Department of Energy to begin the painstaking process of restarting domestic production of plutonium-238. Bringing U.S. nuclear laboratories back on line to produce the isotope is expected to cost at least $150 million and take six years to seven...

It sounds like something from a James Bond movie: a massive satellite, the largest ever launched, equipped with a powerful laser to take out the American anti-missile shield in advance of a Soviet first strike. It was real, though—or at least the plan was. In fact, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev walked out of the October 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, because President Ronald Reagan wouldn't abandon his Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, the Soviets were closer to fielding a space-based weapon than the United States was. Less than a year later, as the world continued to criticize Reagan for...

It sounds like something from a James Bond movie: a massive satellite, the largest ever launched, equipped with a powerful laser to take out the American anti-missile shield in advance of a Soviet first strike. It was real, though—or at least the plan was. In fact, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev walked out of the October 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, because President Ronald Reagan wouldn't abandon his Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, the Soviets were closer to fielding a space-based weapon than the United States was. Less than a year later, as the world continued to criticize Reagan for...

Chennai, Dec 6 (IANS) The Indian space agency is expected to take a major step in January towards realising its next generation rocket by ground-firing the world’s third largest - in terms of fuel mass and length - solid rocket booster developed in-house.

Mumbai: A feasibility report done by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has established that India has the capability to go on a mission to Mars, said former ISRO chariman, G Madhavan Nair. He was speaking during the last day of the international symposium on "science and technology at the frontiers" at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) on Saturday.

California is making waves today by announcing a first-of-its-kind space-based solar project that will transmit energy down to earth from space. According to estimates from developers, the project will generate enough electricity to power 250,000 homes per year. SolarFeeds.com: California’s biggest energy utility PG&E has announced that they would purchase 200MW off solar power that will be beamed from space by 2016.

NASA is gearing up to release $50 million in economic stimulus money to fund technology development for commercial crew transport to the International Space Station and any other low-Earth-orbit (LEO) destinations that may show up.

Most of the light from stars and other objects like planets in the universe is doubly invisible. It comes in the form of infrared, or heat radiation, with wavelengths too long for our eyes to pick up. Moreover, most infrared wavelengths do not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere to get to our unseeing eyes.

IT WILL boldly go where few commercial flights have gone before.

Merry Christmas my fellow Space Freepers...

SpaceShipTwo (SS2) and its mothership, VMS Eve (WhiteKnightTwo) herald a new era in commercial space flight with daily space tourism flights set to commence from Spaceport America in New Mexico after test program and all required US government licens Virgin Founder, Sir Richard Branson and SpaceshipOne (SS1) designer, Burt Rutan, today reveal SS2 to the public for the first time since construction of the world’s first manned commercial spaceship began in 2007. SS2 has been designed to take many thousands of private astronauts into space after test programming and all required U.S. government licensing has been completed. The unveiling represents...

Beijing: In an apparent shift of its stand, a top Chinese military commander has called for militarisation of space, saying it was a "historical inevitability". "China will develop an air force with integrated capabilities for both offensive and defensive operations in space as well as in the air", People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force commander Xu Qiliang said. China has so far been opposing militarisation of outer space, and recently, along with Russia had offered to sign a pact with the US on non-weaponisation of outer space. Xu claimed, "Superiority in space would mean superiority over the land and oceans....

After 30 days of data reduction, Ares I-X engineers continue to find fairly close correlation between their computer models and the flight performance of the test vehicle, which was the tallest rocket ever launched. Flight-control algorithms developed for the operational vehicle "worked extremely well," said NASA's Marshall Smith, systems engineering and integration (SE&I) manager for Ares I-X, and the flight data in general validated the computer models being used to design Ares I. "I, personally, from SE&I, am very, very pleased with the performance of our (guidance, navigation and control) system; the algorithms that we're testing for Ares I worked...

Is all this space travel worthwhile? Will it really contribute to our civilization or our touchingly naive way of life? Will it even lift our spirits? I cannot be sure about the first two, as I feel these might be permanently floating somewhere out there. But I have some space-sourced spirit lifting to share. Japan's Sapporo Breweries, the entity that brings you those large silver tins of beer to complement your rainbow roll, announced this week that it is launching space beer.