Tag: NASA
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Astronaut Alan Bean, Apollo 12’s artistic moonwalker, dies at 86 after sudden illness
Astronaut Alan Bean poses for a portrait in front of a mockup of NASA’s lunar module in advance of his Apollo 12 moon mission in 1969. (NASA Photo) Artist-astronaut Alan Bean, the moonwalker who saw himself as different from the rest, died today at the age of 86 at Houston Medical Hospital. Bean’s death followed…
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Orbital ATK sends Cygnus cargo ship to space station with science and a sextant
Orbital ATK’s Antares rocked rises from its Virginia launch pad, sending a robotic Cygnus cargo ship into space. (NASA Photo / Audrey Gemignani) Update for 10 p.m. PT May 24: Astronauts used the International Space Station’s robotic arm to snag Orbital ATK’s robotic Cygnus cargo ship and attach it to the station after a three-day…
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It’s full of stars! NASA’s planet-hunting TESS probe sends back its first test image
This test image from one of the four cameras aboard the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, captures a swath of the southern sky along the plane of our galaxy. (NASA / MIT / TESS Photo) One month after its launch, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has sent back an initial test image that shows…
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First interplanetary CubeSats already setting records in deep space
Artist’s concept of the MarCO CubeSats. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Two CubeSats developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched May 5 with the InSight mission to Mars have deployed their miniaturized antennas and captured a distant family portrait of the Earth and the moon. The twin spacecraft have already set a distance record for CubeSats, and they…
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Frosty vs. Leaky: Spacewalkers shuffle spare coolant pumps at space station
News Brief: Two NASA spacewalkers repositioned a pair of spare coolant pumps outside the International Space Station today during a 6.5-hour outing. A faulty ammonia pump nicknamed “Leaky” was put into long-term storage while another spare pump, dubbed “Frosty,” was maneuvered into position on the station’s robotic arm for testing later this week. NASA’s Drew…
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Helicopter to accompany NASA’s next Mars rover to Red Planet
Artist’s concept of the Mars Helicopter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech A flying drone fitted with counter-rotating blades, on-board autonomy, and a lightweight carbon-fiber fuselage will ride to the Red Planet with NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, officials announced Friday. Promising results from recent ground testing and a funding boost provided by a new NASA budget passed by Congress…
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Rocketcam replay of InSight’s launch to Mars
Video credit: United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance has released a replay of the May 5 liftoff of NASA’s InSight mission to Mars aboard an Atlas 5 rocket, as viewed by aft- and forward-facing cameras on the two-stage launch vehicle. The 188-foot-tall (57-meter) Atlas 5 rocket lifted off at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT;…
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JWST beset by another problem as Northrop Grumman revamps training
The telescope element of the Webb observatory was unpacked from its shipping container March 8 after arriving at Northrop Grumman’s factory in Redondo Beach, California. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn Engineers working on the James Webb Space Telescope, which had its launch delayed to 2020 earlier this year, recently discovered another problem during testing at the observatory’s…
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SpaceX Dragon cargo ship brings Robonaut and mice back to Earth from space station
News Brief: After a month of unloading and reloading, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule was set loose from the International Space Station today and made a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The two tons of cargo that were returned to Earth include mice that were part of a study focusing on zero-G’s effects on bones and…
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Photos: Mobile gantry retracted for launch of Atlas 5 rocket at Vandenberg
Towering more than 20 stories tall, the 8-million-pound mobile gantry at the Atlas 5 rocket’s launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, was retracted into position late Friday for liftoff of NASA’s InSight mission to Mars. The mobile service tower began moving into launch position around 11:30 p.m. PDT Friday (2:30 a.m. EDT; 0630…