NASA's First Space 3D Printer To Go Live By 2014: Will Be A LifeSaver

NASA is clear about what they want to do about the 3D printer, the first one to be launched in space. The low cost machine is said to be a savior for the astronauts who work from the space station and also help reduce the working cost for future missions. The plan is to launch the 3D metal printer by end of 2014.

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Although this will not be an easy task says the company, the device will have to withstand lift-off vibrations and operate safely in an enclosed space station environment.

Nasa has chosen technology start-up Made in Space to make the microwave oven-sized printer.

"Imagine an astronaut needing to make a life-or-death repair on the International Space Station," said Aaron Kemmer, the company's chief executive.

"Rather than hoping that the necessary parts and tools are on the station already, what if the parts could be 3D printed when they needed them?"

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In 1970, Apollo 13 astronauts had to cobble together a home-made carbon dioxide filter using a plastic bag, a manual cover and gaffer tape.

A 3D printer might have solved the problem in minutes.

"If you want to be adaptable, you have to be able to design and manufacture on the fly, and that's where 3D printing in space comes in,'' said Dave Korsmeyer, director of engineering at Nasa's Ames Research Center.

Nasa is also experimenting with 3D printing small satellites that could be launched from the International Space Station and then transmit data to earth.

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The common technology for 3D printing uses preparing layer by layer of polymer material, also called as Additive Manufacturing. There has been technology used by laser melting titanium and nickel chromium powders to make stronger components.

In August, Nasa successfully tested a metal 3D printed rocket component as part of its drive to reduce the costs of space exploration.

Photos n Inputs From BBC

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- Unknown Updated at: Wednesday, October 02, 2013

NASA's New Smart Cam To Explore Alien World

NASA has developed a new camera system that can not only take pictures of alien rocks, it also draws meaning out of them — allowing a planet rover to decide if it should keep exploring a particular area or move on.

The Curiosity rover exploring Mars boasts impressive technology but future rovers will need more smart technology to explore more distant worlds, researchers said.

To help future rover and space missions spend less time waiting for instructions from Earth, Wagstaff and her colleagues developed an advanced two-lens camera, called TextureCam.

Although Curiosity and other rovers can already, on their own, distinguish rocks from other objects in photos they take, they must send images all the way to Earth for scientific analysis of a particular rock.

This process costs time and limits the potential scientific scope of rovers’ missions. TextureCam can do the analysis by itself, researchers said.

At the beginning of each Martian day, called a sol, scientists on Earth upload an agenda to a Mars rover. This scientific schedule details nearly all of the rover’s movements: roll forward so many meters, snap a photo, scoop a soil sample, run rudimentary tests on it and move on.

Even moving at light speed, instructions from Earth take about 20 minutes to reach the surface of Mars. This 40-minute round-trip makes real-time control of the rover impossible.

On Jupiter’s moon Europa, where astrobiologists suspect extraterrestrial life could exist, the delay balloons to over 90 minutes.

Mars-to-Earth communication costs precious power and trickles at a bandwidth of around 0.012 megabits per second — about 250 times slower than a 3G cellphone network.

Mars orbiters can help speed up the data transfer rate, though the satellites only orbit into correct alignment a few short minutes each day. Curiosity’s constrained connection limits the number of Martian images it can send back to Earth.

“If the rover itself could prioritise what’s scientifically important, it would suddenly have the capability to take more images than it knows it can send back. That goes hand in hand with its ability to discover new things that weren’t anticipated,” said Wagstaff.

When TextureCam’s stereo cameras snap 3D images, a special processor separate from the rover’s main computer analyses the pictures.

By recognising textures in the photos, the processor distinguishes between sand, rocks and sky. The processor then uses the size and distance to rocks in the picture to determine if any are scientifically important layered rocks.

The system’s built-in processor avoids straining the rover’s busy main processor. When TextureCam spots an interesting rock, it can either upload a high-resolution image back to Earth or send a message to the main processor to move towards the rock and take a sample.

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, September 10, 2013

LADEE Recovers, NASA Moon Mission Back On Track

NASA's newest robotic explorer rocketed into space late Friday in an unprecedented moonshot from Virginia that dazzled sky watchers along the East Coast.

But the LADEE spacecraft quickly ran into equipment trouble, and while NASA assured everyone early Saturday that the lunar probe was safe and on a perfect track for the moon, officials acknowledged the problem needs to be resolved in the next two to three weeks.

S. Peter Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California, which developed the spacecraft, told reporters he's confident everything will be working properly in the next few days.

LADEE's reaction wheels were turned on to orient and stabilize the spacecraft, which was spinning too fast after it separated from the final rocket stage, Worden said. But the computer automatically shut the wheels down, apparently because of excess current. He speculated the wheels may have been running a little fast.

Worden stressed there is no rush to "get these bugs ironed out."

The LADEE spacecraft, which is charged with studying the lunar atmosphere and dust, soared aboard an unmanned Minotaur rocket a little before midnight from Virginia's Eastern Shore.

"Godspeed on your journey to the moon, LADEE," Launch Control said. Flight controllers applauded and exchanged high-fives following the successful launch. "We are headed to the moon!" NASA said in a tweet.

It was a change of venue for NASA, which normally launches moon missions from Cape Canaveral, Fla. But it provided a rare light show along the East Coast for those blessed with clear skies.

NASA urged sky watchers to share their launch pictures through the website Flickr, and the photos and sighting reports quickly poured in from New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New Jersey, Rhode Island, eastern Pennsylvania and Virginia, among other places.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer or LADEE, pronounced "LA'-dee," is taking a roundabout path to the moon, making three huge laps around Earth before getting close enough to pop into lunar orbit.

Unlike the quick three-day Apollo flights to the moon, LADEE will need a full month to reach Earth's closest neighbor. An Air Force Minotaur V rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp., provided the ride from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

LADEE, which is the size of a small car, is expected to reach the moon on Oct. 6.

Scientists want to learn the composition of the moon's ever-so-delicate atmosphere and how it might change over time. Another puzzle, dating back decades, is whether dust actually levitates from the lunar surface.

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- Unknown Updated at: Sunday, September 08, 2013

Science : Sun's Magnetic Field To Change In Few Months

Measurements from NASA-supported observatories suggest that the sun’s vast magnetic field is about to flip.

“It looks like we’re no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal,” solar physicist Todd Hoeksema of Stanford University, said.

Measurements from NASA-supported observatories suggest that the sun’s vast magnetic field is about to flip.

“It looks like we’re no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal,” solar physicist Todd Hoeksema of Stanford University, said.

“This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system,” he said.

The sun’s magnetic field changes polarity approximately every 11 years.

It happens at the peak of each solar cycle as the sun’s inner magnetic dynamo re-organizes itself.

The coming reversal will mark the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24. Half of “solar max” will be behind us, with half yet to come.

Hoeksema is the director of Stanford’s Wilcox Solar Observatory, one of the few observatories in the world that monitors the sun’s polar magnetic fields.

The poles are a herald of change. Just as Earth scientists watch our planet’s polar regions for signs of climate change, solar physicists do the same thing for the sun.

Magnetograms at Wilcox have been tracking the sun’s polar magnetism since 1976, and they have recorded three grand reversals—with a fourth in the offing.

Solar physicist Phil Scherrer, also at Stanford, describes what happens: “The sun’s polar magnetic fields weaken, go to zero and then emerge again with the opposite polarity. This is a regular part of the solar cycle.

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- Unknown Updated at: Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Science : 100 Meter asteroid passes close by earth today

It's the plot of a dozen movies and Sci-Fi books: an asteroid large enough to do serious damage to Earth is spotted just a few days before it sails close to our stellar doorstep.

Faced with the possibility of extinction humanity does the only sensible thing: stream it live on the 'net.

That's what the Slooh Space Camera did today, after Asteroid NE19 zipped past our planet.

Discovered just last week, NE19 was said to be the size of a football field. It's also rather dark, which explains the ever-so-recent detection.

The rock passed 11 Lunar Distances from Earth. That's unsettlingly close, on a scale that escalates to disconcertingly close, worryingly close and Lucifer's Hammer close.



Slooh Space Camera's tracked the object from its Canary Islands observatory and kindly made video of its coverage available to all in the video below.

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Science : Pictures of Earth 900 million miles away - Cassini Spacecraft

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Carl Sagan once referred to the Earth as "where we make our stand."

And when seen by NASA's Cassini spacecraft from over 900 million miles away, that pale, blue dot he described suddenly makes sense. It's home -- but just one tiny speck barely visible in the infinite reach of space.

High above the planet Saturn on Friday, Cassini took photographs of that pixel we live on, backlit by Saturn's rings. If you looked at the skies, chances are you were photographed from space by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, almost a billion miles away. You’re not the only one.

For the first time in the nine years the spacecraft had been in orbit, Earth’s inhabitants knew that their photos would be taken and came out to take part in “The Day that the Earth Smiled.” Scientists knew this and a social media campaign had been waged in the weeks prior, urging Earthlings to participate in the worldwide event.

Carolyn Porco, the leader of Cassini’s Imaging Team and the founder of “The Day that the Earth Smiled,” tweeted after the unique interplanetary photo-op, gushing...

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- Unknown Updated at: Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Geminid Meteor Shower 2012 - Today!

Geminid Meteor shower will be peak from December 13 to December 14 and can be seen on the dark night sky, and as per NASA, it can be seen at the peak at 2 a.m ET. That is when the meteor activity is said to be high. Although the meteor shower should be visible from 9PM to 12PM ET.

The meteor shower happens once every weak and it is usually during full moon days that we are able to view it clearly.

"The Geminids are my favorite because they defy explanation," NASA Astronomer Bill Cooke stated on the agency's website. Geminids are actually generated from a strange rocky object identified as the 3200 Phaethon with the help from NASA's IRAS satellite in 1983.


Every December, planet Earth passes through a stream of debris that surrounds the 3200 Phaethon. The sand-sized pieces of the debris called Geminids come into Earth's atmosphere then create a stunning show of fireballs.

The Geminid meteor shower was first noticed in the early 19th century. It only attracted little attention because it was weak but has now developed into a more brighter and intense meteor shower.

Check out here at NASA website to see more live action around 10PM ET

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- Unknown Updated at: Thursday, December 13, 2012