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| December 18, 2013 |
 Asia's year in space triggers applause but also worry Paris (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - The past 12 months will be remembered as the year when Asia's economic powerhouses barged their way into the elite club of spacefarers. South Korea placed its first satellite in orbit, Japan launched a new three-stage rocket and India set its eyes on Mars, dispatching its first scout to the Red Planet. Heading the pack in 2013, though, was China. It carried out another manned trip as a p ... more |  |
 To launch or not? NASA debates space station fix Washington (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - NASA on Tuesday debated whether to go ahead with a planned cargo mission to the International Space Station or postpone it so astronauts can do spacewalks for urgent repairs. On Wednesday of last week, NASA learned that a faulty valve had interfered with the cooling loops that regulate equipment temperature aboard the orbiting space lab. The six-man crew was never in danger due to the pr ... more |  |
IBM sees five tech-powered changes in next five years San Francisco (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - Technology stalwart IBM on Tuesday predicted classrooms getting to know students and doctors using DNA to customize care are among five big changes on the horizon. IBM said that its annual forecast of five ways technology will change lives in the coming five years was "driven by a new era of cognitive systems where machines will learn, reason and engage with us in a more natural and personal ... more |  |
 Billion-dollar 'discovery machine' set for launch Paris (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - Europe on Thursday will place a billion-dollar bet on a space telescope designed to provide the biggest and most detailed 3-D map of the Milky Way. If all goes well, a Soyuz-STB-Fregat rocket will lift off from Kourou, French Guiana, hoisting the observatory Gaia on a five-year exploration that may sweep away notions of our place in the galaxy. The most sophisticated space telescope ever ... more |  |
 UNH Scientists Launch "CubeSats" into Radiation Belts Durham NH (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Twin, pintsized satellites built in part at the University of New Hampshire's Space Science Center by UNH graduate student Alex Crew were launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California just before midnight on December 5, 2013. The two 4x4x6-inch Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Burst Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FIREBIRD) satellites will now brave a regi ... more |  |
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 Chinese sci-fi writers laud moon landing Beijing (XNA) Dec 17, 2013 - The landing of China's first moon rover on the lunar surface on Sunday morning has had the nation's sci-fi writers cheering for fiction's gradual unfolding into reality. Chinese legend has it that Chang'e, the wife of a gallant archer, flew to the moon and resided in a lunar palace after drinking a medicine of longevity. The lunar goddess is said to have a jade rabbit as her companion. ... more |  |
 China plans to launch Chang'e-5 in 2017 Beijing (XNA) Dec 17, 2013 - China plans to launch lunar probe Chang'e-5 in 2017, according to the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. "The development of Chang'e-5 is proceeding smoothly," said the administration's spokesman Wu Zhijian at a press conference on Monday. The just-concluded Chang'e-3 mission marked completion of the second phase of the country's lunar program, w ... more |  |
 Innovative instrument probes close binary stars, may soon image exoplanets Berkeley CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - A new instrument that combines two high-resolution telescope techniques - adaptive optics and interferometry - has for the first time distinguished and studied the individual stars in a nearby binary star system, demonstrating promise for eventually picking out planets around other stars. In the December issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Berkeley, a ... more |  |
China's Lunar Lander May Provide Additional Science for NASA Spacecraft Greenbelt MD (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - After sending 12 humans to the moon's surface during the Apollo Program, NASA remains committed to lunar science. Building on modern missions such as Clementine and Lunar Prospector and recent missions like LCROSS and GRAIL, NASA science has helped to map the moon, determine the presence of water ice, and understand our satellite's irregular gravity field. NASA's current missions to the mo ... more |  |
Deep space monitoring station abroad imperative Beijing (XNA) Dec 17, 2013 - China needs to build a deep space monitoring station abroad because the existing network is not capable of tracking deep space detectors round the clock, a leading scientist said on Monday. Despite having two monitoring stations in the country, there are still eight to ten hours a day during which China cannot track its deep space detectors, said Zhou Jianliang, chief engineer of the Beiji ... more |  |
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 Swirls in remnants of Big Bang may hold clues to universe's infancy Chicago IL (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - South Pole Telescope scientists have detected for the first time a subtle distortion in the oldest light in the universe, which may help reveal secrets about the earliest moments in the universe's formation. The scientists observed twisting patterns in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background-light that last interacted with matter very early in the history of the universe, less than 4 ... more |  |
Johns Hopkins APL Will Launch RAVAN to Help Solve an Earth Science Mystery Laurel MD (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - A new, low-cost cubesat mission led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., will demonstrate technology needed to measure the absolute imbalance in the Earth's radiation budget for the first time, giving scientists valuable information to study our climate. The Radiometer Assessment using Vertically Aligned Nanotubes (RAVAN) satellite, scheduled for launch in 2015, ... more |  |
 New Views of Mars from Sediment Mineralogy Tucson, AZ (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - The first detailed examination of clay mineralogy in its original setting on Mars is offering new insights on the planet's past habitability, research led by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist David T. Vaniman has found. The sedimentary rock samples tested were collected by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity at Yellowknife Bay in Gale Crater on Mars. The rover's Chemi ... more |  |
Opportunity Communications Remain Slow Due To Odyssey Issues Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 17, 2013 - Opportunity is up on 'Solander Point' at the rim of 'Endeavour Crater.' The rover is maintaining favorable northerly tilts for improved energy production. Mars Odyssey went into safe mode and was unable to provide relay support for Opportunity since Sol 3509 (Dec. 7, 2013). The rover was healthy as of that sol. A Direct-To-Earth (DTE) transmission from Opportunity occurred on Sol 351 ... more |  |
Nearby failed stars may harbor planet Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Astronomers, including Carnegie's Yuri Beletsky, took precise measurements of the closest pair of failed stars to the Sun, which suggest that the system harbors a third, planetary-mass object. Failed stars are known as brown dwarfs and have a mass below 8% of the mass of the Sun-not massive enough to burn hydrogen in their centers. This particular system, Luhman 16AB, was discovered earlie ... more |  |
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 Juno slingshots past Earth on its way to Jupiter Iowa City IA (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - If you've ever whirled a ball attached to a string around your head and then let it go, you know the great speed that can be achieved through a slingshot maneuver. Similarly, NASA's Juno spacecraft will be passing within some 350 miles of Earth's surface Wednesday, Oct. 9, before it slingshots off into space on a historic exploration of Jupiter. It's all part of a scientific investigation ... more |  |
 India to decide December 27 on GSAT-14 launch date Chennai, India (IANS) Dec 17, 2013 - The Indian space agency Dec 27 would decide the date for the launch of communication satellite GSAT-14 using its heavier rocket geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV), said a senior official. "The GSLV launch will be in January. The exact date will be decided Dec 27 at a meeting," MYS Prasad, director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), told IANS over phone from Sriharikota in Andhra Pra ... more |  |
NASA sees 'some success' with space station fix Washington (AFP) Dec 16, 2013 - NASA engineers are still trying to fix an International Space Station cooling problem and have not yet decided whether spacewalks will be necessary, the US space agency said Monday. The NASA team on the ground is "having some degree of success" at working on a faulty valve that has disrupted the equipment cooling system aboard the orbiting research outpost, said ISS Missions Operations Integ ... more |  |
 Arctic storms that churn seas and melt ice more common than thought Columbus, Ohio (UPI) Dec 16, 2013 - Arctic storms swirling around the top of the world are more common than previously thought with about 1,900 in the first decade of the century, researchers say. As they churn across the top of the globe each year they leave warm water and air in their wakes, melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, scientists at Ohio State University reported Wednesday. An analysis of arctic storms f ... more |  |
NASA Finds Reducing Salt Is Bad For Glacial Health Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 17, 2013 - A new NASA-led study has discovered an intriguing link between sea ice conditions and the melting rate of Totten Glacier, the glacier in East Antarctica that discharges the most ice into the ocean. The discovery, involving cold, extra salty water - brine - that forms within openings in sea ice, adds to our understanding of how ice sheets interact with the ocean, and may improve our ability to fo ... more |  |
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