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ROCKET TO PLUTO: Thirty-five years ago, Apollo astronauts took 3 days to reach the moon. Yesterday, New Horizons did it in 9 hours, becoming the fastest spacecraft ever launched from Earth. New Horizons needs all the speed it can get: destination Pluto is six billion miles away.

After zipping past the moon's orbit, New Horizons heads for Jupiter, a 13 month trip. The spacecraft will slingshot around the giant planet, boosting its speed even more, from 36,000 mph to 47,000 mph.

All that speed, and it will still take New Horizons 9 years to reach Pluto. What will it find when it gets there? No one knows, because no spacecraft has ever visited Pluto. Stay tuned for updates ... in 2015.

Mission website: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
 
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Kuiper Belt-Like Disks Around Two Nearby Stars

http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads/hd_53143_1.jpg

A survey by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of 22 nearby stars has turned up two with bright debris disks that appear to be the equivalent of our own solar system's Kuiper Belt, a ring of icy rocks outside the orbit of Neptune and the source of short-period comets.

The debris disks encircling these stars fall into two categories - wide and narrow belts - that appear to describe all nine stars, including the sun, which are known to have debris disks linked to planet formation. In fact, the sharp outer edges of the narrow belts, such as the Kuiper Belt in our solar system, may be a tip-off to the existence of a star-like companion that continually grooms the edge, in the same way that shepherding moons trim the edges of debris rings around Saturn and Uranus.

Research astronomer Paul Kalas, professor of astronomy James Graham and graduate student Michael Fitzgerald of the University of California, Berkeley, along with Mark C. Clampin of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will report their discovery and conclusions in the Jan. 20 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The newfound stellar disks, each about 60 light years from Earth, bring to nine the number of stars with dusty debris disks observable at visible wavelengths. The new ones are different, however, in that they are old enough - more than 300 million years - to have settled into stable configurations akin to the stable planet and debris orbits in our own solar system, which is 4.6 billion years old. The other seven, except for the sun, range from tens of millions to 200 million years old - young by solar standards.

In addition, the masses of the stars are closer to that of the sun.

"These are the oldest debris disks seen in reflected light, and are important because they show what the Kuiper Belt might look like from the outside," said Kalas, the lead researcher. "These are the types of stars around which you would expect to find habitable zones and planets that could develop life."

Most debris disks are lost in the glare of the central star, but the high resolution and sensitivity of the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys has made it possible to look for these disks after blocking the light from the star. Kalas has discovered debris disks around two other stars (AU Microscopii and Fomalhaut) in the past two years, one of them with the Hubble telescope, and has studied details of most of the other known stars with disks.

"We know of 100-plus stars that have infrared emission in excess of that emitted from the star, and that excess thermal emission comes from circumstellar dust," Kalas said. "The hard part is obtaining resolved images that give spatial information. Now, two decades after they were first discovered, we are finally beginning to see the dust disks. These recent detections are really a tribute to all the hard work that went into upgrading Hubble's instruments during the last servicing mission."

The small sampling already shows that such disks fall into two categories: those with a broad belt, wider than about 50 astronomical units; and narrow ones with a width of between 20 and 30 AU and a sharp outer boundary, probably like our own Kuiper Belt. An astronomical unit, or AU, is the average distance between the Earth and sun, about 93 million miles. Our Kuiper Belt is thought to be narrow, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 AU to about 50 AU.

Most of the known debris disks seem to have a central area cleared of debris, perhaps by planets, which are likely responsible for the sharp inner edges of many of these belts.

Kalas and Graham speculate that stars also having sharp outer edges to their debris disks have a companion - a star or brown dwarf, perhaps - that keeps the disk from spreading outward, similar to the way that Saturn's moons shape the edges of many of the planet's rings.

"The story of how you make a ring around a planet could be the same as the story of making rings around a star," Kalas said. Only one of the nine stars is known to have a companion, but then, he said, no one has yet looked at most of these stars to see if they have faint companions at large distances from the primary star.

He suggests that a stray star passing by may have ripped off the edges of the original planetary disk, but a star-sized companion would be necessary to keep the remaining disk material, such as asteroids, comets and dust, from spreading outward.

If true, that would mean that the sun also has a companion keeping the Kuiper Belt confined within a sharp boundary. Though a companion star has been proposed before - most recently by UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller, who dubbed the companion Nemesis - no evidence has been found for such a companion.

A key uncertainty, Kalas said, is that while we can see many of the large planetesimals in our Kuiper Belt, we can barely detect the dust.

"Ironically, our own debris disk is the closest, yet we know the least about it," he said. "We would really like to know if dust in our Kuiper Belt extends significantly beyond the 50 AU edge of the larger objects. When we acquire this information, only then will we be able to place our sun correctly in the wide or narrow disk categories."

The star survey by Kalas, Graham, Fitzgerald and Clampin was one of the first projects of the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the Hubble, which was installed in 2002. The 22 stars were observed over a two year period ending in September 2004. The stars with debris disks detectable in visible light were HD 53143, a K star slightly smaller than the sun but about 1 billion years old, and HD 139664, an F star slightly larger than the sun but only 300 million years old.

"One is a K star and the other is an F star, therefore they are more likely to form planetary systems with life than the massive and short-lived stars such as beta-Pictoris and Fomalhaut," he noted. "When we look at HD 53143 and HD 139664, we may be looking at astrophysical mirrors to our Kuiper Belt."

The disk around the oldest of the two stars, HD 53143, is wide like that of beta-Pictoris (beta-Pic), which was the first debris disk ever observed, about 20 years ago, and AU Microscopii (AU Mic), which Kalas discovered last year. Both beta-Pic and AU Mic are about 10 million years old.

The disk around HD 139664, however, is a narrow belt, similar to the disk around the star Fomalhaut, which Kalas imaged for the first time early last year. HD 139664 has a very sharp outer edge at 109 AU, similar to the sharp outer edge of our Kuiper Belt at 50 AU. The belt around HD 139664 starts about 60 AU from the star and peaks in density at 83 AU.

"If we can understand the origin of the sharp outer edge around HD 139664, we might better understand the history of our solar system," Kalas said.

The research was supported by grants from NASA through the Space Telescope Science Institute.
 
 
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SuitSat

January 26, 2006: One of the strangest satellites in the history of the space age is about to go into orbit. Launch date: Feb. 3rd. That's when astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) will hurl an empty spacesuit overboard.

The spacesuit is the satellite -- "SuitSat" for short.

"SuitSat is a Russian brainstorm," explains Frank Bauer of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Some of our Russian partners in the ISS program, mainly a group led by Sergey Samburov, had an idea: Maybe we can turn old spacesuits into useful satellites." SuitSat is a first test of that idea.

"We've equipped a Russian Orlan spacesuit with three batteries, a radio transmitter, and internal sensors to measure temperature and battery power," says Bauer. "As SuitSat circles Earth, it will transmit its condition to the ground."

Unlike a normal spacewalk, with a human inside the suit, SuitSat's temperature controls will be turned off to conserve power. The suit, arms and legs akimbo, possibly spinning, will be exposed to the fierce rays of the sun with no way to regulate its internal temperature.

"Will the suit overheat? How long will the batteries last? Can we get a clear transmission if the suit tumbles?" wonders Bauer. These are some of the questions SuitSat will answer, laying the groundwork for SuitSats of the future.

SuitSat can be heard by anyone on the ground. "All you need is an antenna (the bigger the better) and a radio receiver that you can tune to 145.990 MHz FM," says Bauer. "A police band scanner or a hand-talkie ham radio would work just fine." He encourages students, scouts, teachers and ham radio operators to tune in.

For years, Bauer and colleagues at Goddard have been connecting kids on Earth with astronauts on the ISS through the ARISS program (Amateur Radio on International Space Station). "There's a ham rig on the ISS, and the astronauts love talking to students when they pass over schools," Bauer explains. ARISS is co-sponsoring SuitSat along with the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the Russian Space Agency and NASA.

When will SuitSat orbit over your home town?

Use Science@NASA's J-Pass utility (http://science.nasa.gov/RealTime/JPass/25/JPass.asp) to find out. The online program will ask for your zip code—that's all. Then it will tell you when the ISS is going to orbit over your area. (Be sure to click the "options" button and select "all passes.") Because the ISS and SuitSat share similar orbits, predictions for one will serve for the other. Observers in the United States will find that SuitSat passes overhead once or twice a day—usually between midnight and 4 o'clock in the morning. At that time of day, SuitSat and the ISS will be in Earth's shadow and, thus, too dark to see with the naked eye. You'll need a radio to detect them.

"Point your antenna to the sky during the 5-to-10 minute flyby," advises Bauer, and this is what you'll hear:

SuitSat transmits for 30 seconds, pauses for 30 seconds, and then repeats. "This is SuitSat-1, RS0RS," the transmission begins, followed by a prerecorded greeting in five languages. The greeting contains "special words" in English, French, Japanese, Russian, German and Spanish for students to record and decipher. (Awards will be given to students who do this. Scroll to the "more information" area at the end of this story for details.)

Next comes telemetry: temperature, battery power, mission elapsed time. "The telemetry is stated in plain language—in English," says Bauer. Everyone will be privy to SuitSat's condition. Bauer adds, "Suitsat 'talks' using a voice synthesizer. It's pretty amazing."

The transmission ends with a Slow Scan TV picture. Of what? "We're not telling," laughs Bauer. "It's a mystery picture." (More awards will be given to students who figure out what it is.)

Right: In a laboratory at Goddard, SuitSat bends over to display its antenna and control box. [More]

Students and teachers who want to try this, but have no clue how to begin, should contact their local ham radio club. There are thousands of them around the country. Click here to find a club near you. "Hams are notoriously outgoing; most would be delighted to help students tune in to SuitSat," believes Bauer.

Bauer expects SuitSat's batteries to last 2 to 4 days. "Although longer is possible," he allows. After that, SuitSat will begin a slow silent spiral into Earth's atmosphere. Weeks or months later, no one knows exactly when, it will become a brilliant fireball over some part of Earth—a fitting end for a trailblazer.

Visit SuitSat.org for launch updates and sighting reports.

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/articles/BauerSuitsat/index.php
http://suitsat.org/
 
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Taking a stroll outside the space station
Old spacesuit to gets (short) new life as amateur radio satellite

Friday, February 3, 2006; Posted: 10:16 p.m. EST (03:16 GMT)

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/TECH/space/02/03/spacewalk.ap/story.spacewalk.jpg
SuitSat-1 floats like a lost soul out into the void of space.


CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- The crew of the international space station shoved an unmanned spacesuit stuffed with discarded clothing and radio equipment out the door Friday, creating a ghostly scene that resembled a cosmonaut tumbling away from the orbiting outpost.

Complete with helmet and gloves, the spacesuit floated past the Russian section of the space station, 220 miles above Earth, before rotating away feet first and beginning its orbit around the globe.

"Goodbye, Mr. Smith," flight engineer Valery Tokarev said in Russian, giving the figure the generic nickname "Ivan Ivanovich" as he and U.S. commander Bill McArthur began a six-hour spacewalk to perform maintenance and photography tasks.

The Russian suit was equipped with a radio transmitter that will send recorded messages in six languages to amateur radio operators for several days before eventually re-entering Earth's atmosphere and burning up, NASA officials said.
Sending signals

The spacesuit project, known as SuitSat-1, was the brainchild of a Russian ham radio operator. It will send several words in code for schoolchildren listening on the ground. Radio operators will be able to pick up the messages for several days by tuning into FM frequency 145.990 MHz.

Along with the radio transmitter, the stuffed spacesuit also has internal sensors to monitor temperature and battery power. As it floats along, it will transmit its temperature, battery power and time it has been in space to the ground.

Students and others can also follow its progress on a NASA Web site. The suit was expected to pass over the U.S. between midnight and 4 a.m. according to NASA.

A third of the way into Friday's spacewalk, McArthur asked NASA's Johnson Space Center whether anyone had picked up signals from the spacesuit.

"We're hearing that Japan has been listening to Ivan Ivanovich," said NASA spacecraft communicator Mike Foale, who once wore the spacesuit during a 2004 spacewalk.

McArthur responded, "Really? Well, that's outstanding!"

During the spacewalk, Tokarev and McArthur covered a wide swath of the 240-foot-wide, 140-foot-long floating station as they took on several chores. It was the fourth spacewalk for McArthur and the second for Tokarev.

The tasks included creating storage space, retrieving a Russian science experiment and photographing handrails, antennas and sensors to see how they have held up in space.

Their most difficult chore involved taking steps to protect an important cable connected to a transporter that moves a platform holding the station's robotic arm.

A twin cable that provides power, data and video to the mobile transporter was inadvertently cut in December. Mission managers wanted to make sure that did not happen to the remaining cable by having McArthur insert a bolt into a cable cutter device.

But McArthur had trouble tightening the bolt, so Tokarev instead tied the cable with a wire to a handrail out of the way of the cable cutter device. The cut cable will be repaired later, but in the meantime the transporter cannot move.

"It's disappointing that it didn't go exactly the way we wanted," McArthur said. "You know, that's just life in the big city."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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"SuitSat-1" Alive, But Signal Weak; "Keep Listening!" ARISS Urges

NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 5, 2006--Earlier reports to the contrary, "SuitSat-1" is alive. Whether it's also well is the question that's still up in the air. The 145.99 MHz radio signal from the orbiting Russian Orlan spacesuit--deployed from the International Space Station at 2303 UTC on February 3--has been heard around the world, but reports by and large indicate it's far weaker than anticipated. The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program fleshed out the SuitSat concept after ARISS-Russia's Sergei Samburov, RV3DR, came up with the idea in 2004. ARISS International Chairman Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, said this weekend the fact SuitSat-1's signal has been heard at all is reason for optimism, and he's not ready to write off the project as a failure.

"It is absolutely clear that SuitSat-1 is alive," Bauer said in an update posted on the AMSAT-NA Web site. "The prime issue appears to be an extremely weak signal." Bauer and others who have heard SuitSat-1's downlink signal report being able to copy only snippets of the "This is SuitSat-1 RS0RS" voice ID or the SSTV signal. "One of the complicating factors in reception is the very deep fades that occur due to the spin of SuitSat," he added. Efforts are under way to diagnose the cause of SuitSat-1's poor signal.

He said Saturday that evidence to that point in the mission was suggesting a problem with the antenna, the feed line, the transmitter output power "and/or any of the connections in between." Bauer called on stations around the world to help narrow down what's causing the weak signal by making an extra effort to listen for SuitSat on 145.99 MHz and especially to download telemetry data. SuitSat-1 is programmed to report mission time, suit temperature (the few reports posted recorded temperatures ranging from 13 to 65 degrees C) and battery voltage (28 V is nominal, but some telemetry reports recorded the voltage as 7 V) down to Earth. It also transmits a single Robot 36-format SSTV image.

Deployed During Space Walk

SuitSat-1's deployment over the south-central Pacific Ocean was the first task of the February 3 space walk by ISS Expedition 12 crew members Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, and Valery Tokarev.

"Dosvidanya! Good-bye, Mr Smith!" Tokarev said in Russian as SuitSat-1, unhooked from its tether and pushed away from the space station, tumbled slowly away into the void. SuitSat drifted off until it appeared as a mere speck silhouetted against brightly illuminated Earth below.

Orbit Similar to that of ISS

As SuitSat-1's orbit begins to decay, it may begin to differ from that of the ISS. A listing of ISS passes and a graph showing the position of the ISS are available on the AMSAT Web site. JH3XCU/1 in Japan posted the first reception reports, noting a weak signal. A few reports, such as that of VE6BLD, were upbeat. "Heard SuitSat for third time!!," he said in his posting. "Recorded audio and telemetry and SSTV!! Wow."

Audio Reports Solicited

A.J. Farmer, AJ3U, has put out a call for radio amateurs around the world to post any SuitSat-1 audio recordings to his Web site. "I have had an overwhelming response," he told ARRL today. "I am continuing to receive these audio files, and I'm posting them to my Web site as quickly as possible. Despite the continued media reports that SuitSat is dead, the truth is that it is still very much alive as proven by the recordings."

ARISS Asks Earth Stations to Put Best Receiving Gear to Work

Given multiple reports of "unintelligible," "very weak" and "barely discernible" signals, Bauer called on Earth stations to put the best receiving equipment they have into play.

"We ask for those with powerful receive stations to listen for SuitSat--especially during direct overhead passes when the suit is closest to your area," he urged. "If you can record these passes and send the audio to us, it would be most appreciated. We will continue to be optimistic that this issue will right itself before the batteries are depleted. So please KEEP LISTENING!"

Among other recommendations, Bauer said stations hoping to get a clean copy of the SuitSat-1 signal will need "as high a gain antenna as possible with mast mounted pre-amps." Earth stations shouldn't bother with passes below 40 degrees in elevation. "We have found that closest approach provides several seconds of SuitSat communication with 22-element Yagis," he said. "The 'gold' we are looking for right now is the telemetry information and how long the vehicle stays operational. So if you hear any of the telemetry, please let us know."

Efforts also are under way to set up the ARISS Phase 2 NA1SS station aboard the ISS as a crossband repeater to downlink SuitSat-1's signal on 437.80 MHz. The Phase 2 transceiver runs 10 W. The ISS packet system will remain shut down during the SuitSat-1 mission.

SuitSat Still a Success

Notwithstanding the unusual satellite's weak transmissions, SuitSat-1 has been "tremendously successful" in other ways, Bauer said.

"We have captured the imagination of students and the general public worldwide through this unique experiment," he said, adding that the media attention alone has been some of the best ever for Amateur Radio. The SuitSat Web site had logged more than two million hits as of Saturday. Farmer says he's had a similar response to his solicitation for SuitSat-1 audio clips. "The number of hits on my Web site has been tremendous, showing the popularity of this experiment," he told ARRL. "Very exciting stuff!"

Bauer further notes that SuitSat-1 has successfully carried student artwork, signatures and voices into space, and "the students are now space travelers as the suit rotates and orbits the earth." Among the photographs on the SuitSat-1 CD are those of ARISS pioneers and veterans Roy Neal, K6DUE (SK), and Thomas Kieselbach, DL2MDE (SK).

SuitSat-1 also has shown that a spacesuit could be deployed and orbited from the ISS, "demonstrating to the space agencies that this can be safely done," Bauer noted. "This ARISS international team was able to fabricate, test and deliver a safe ham radio system to the ISS team three weeks after the international space agencies agreed to allow SuitSat to happen. This was a tremendous feat in of itself."

"SuitSat-1/Radioskaf is a space pioneering effort. Pioneering efforts are challenging. Risk is high. But the future payoff is tremendous," Bauer concluded. "As you have seen, we have not had total success. But we have captured the imagination of the students and the general public. And we have already learned a lot from this activity. This will help us and others grow from this experience."

Another surplus Orlan spacesuit remains aboard the ISS, and it could one day serve as SuitSat-2.

http://www.suitsat.org/
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/index.php
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/predict/
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/articles/SuitSat/

Recordings of signals: http://www.aj3u.com/blog/
 
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New York Station Copies Complete "SuitSat-1" Telemetry

NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 8, 2006--Based on recent reports, the already-puny 145.99 MHz signal from "SuitSat-1" may be getting even weaker, but at least one earthbound radio amateur has been able to copy a very nearly complete telemetry transmission. ARRL member Richard Crow, N2SPI, of Smithville Flats, New York, heard the SuitSat-1 audio during a February 8 pass at approximately 1350 UTC. The recording indicated a reasonably strong signal between fades.

"Yippee!," Crow exulted in a posting on the Web site of A.J. Farmer, AJ3U, who's been collecting SuitSat audio clips. "I just captured the telemetry for SuitSat-1." Between fades because of SuitSat-1's rolling, the telemetry in a woman's voice clearly gives the mission time as 006607 minutes, the temperature as 12 degrees Celcius and the battery voltage as approximately 26 V. A signal fade during the voltage transmission made it impossible to hear the fractional part of the voltage reading after the word "point" to indicate the decimal point. The nominal battery voltage is 28 V, so the telemetry Crow copied suggests the batteries are not the problem behind SuitSat-1's generally weak signal.

Crow also copied a voice ID and other information in Russian. "My four stacked M2 2m12 antennas are bringing home the bacon!" Crow said he also was able to download "some pretty decent SuitSat-1 image data" that he may post later to the AJ3U site. He already submitted SSTV audio. The space image includes the logo of SuitSat-1's sponsor, the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program, in the upper-left corner and has some text superimposed on the bottom of the frame.

Farmer, who lives in Maryland, has invited the Amateur Radio and monitoring communities to post audio clips to site.

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Several new astronauts are Amateur Radio licensees (Feb 15, 2006) -- After 18 months of intense training, NASA's latest astronaut candidates now are officially astronauts, and several already are Amateur Radio licensees. The class of 11, including three educator astronauts selected from teachers across the nation, received NASA Astronaut pins in a graduation ceremony February 10. This is NASA's first astronaut class focused from the start on realizing the Vision for Space Exploration, America's long-term exploration strategy that includes extending a human presence across the solar system. Their training has included water and land survival courses, T-38 flight instruction and space shuttle and International Space Station systems training as well as numerous qualifying exams and flight evaluations. The new astronauts' immediate duties include support roles in the space shuttle and space station programs. The new astronauts and their work assignments are: Mission Specialist-Educator Joe Acaba, KE5DAR, Mission Specialist-Educator Richard Arnold, KE5DAU, and Mission Specialist-Educator Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, KE5DAT--all Space station branch and education; Pilot Randy Bresnik, Space station branch; Mission Specialist Christopher Cassidy, Space station operations branch and CapCom branch; Pilot James Dutton, Exploration branch; Mission Specialist Jose Hernandez, KE5DAV, Shuttle branch; Mission Specialist Shane Kimbrough, Safety branch; Mission Specialist Thomas Marshburn, Space station and exploration branch; Mission Specialist Robert Satcher, Robotics branch and space station branch, and Mission Specialist Shannon Walker, KD5DXB, Space station operations branch and CapCom branch. Three Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronauts trained alongside the NASA candidates and will join the rest of the corps. They are Mission Specialist Naoko Yamazaki, KE5DAS, Robotics branch; Mission Specialist Akihiko Hoshide, KE5DNI, CapCom branch and space station branch; Mission Specialist Satoshi Furukawa, KE5DAW, Robotics branch and space station branch.--NASA
 
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SuitSat-1 Apparently SK; Nothing Heard for Several Days

NEWINGTON, CT, Feb 22, 2006--The novel SuitSat-1 (AO-54) satellite--a Russian spacesuit carrying an Amateur Radio transmit-only payload put into orbit February 3--has gone silent, apparently for good. Among the latest reports was one from Bob King, VE6BLD, who reported "nothing heard" during a 67-degree pass over his Alberta location February 18. Subsequent reports to the SuitSat Web site appear to back up his unofficial pronouncement that the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) satellite experiment had stopped transmitting. ISS Ham Radio Project Engineer Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO, says a significant voltage drop Richard Crow, N2SPI, noted in his final telemetry report apparently was the death knell for SuitSat-1.

"The ARISS team overcame a lot of issues in development and still was able to prove it could be done," said Ransom. "They learned a lot in the process and learned even more from the experiment once it was deployed."

A message on the SuitSat Web site declares, "It has been days since a solid report of reception has come in; it is certain SuitSat's batteries have died. Thanks to all who participated in this experiment!"

AJ Farmer, AJ3U, who collected and posted SuitSat-1 audio and SSTV recordings on his Web site expressed his appreciation to all who had contributed. "This has made SuitSat very enjoyable for those of us that were never able to hear SuitSat for ourselves (me included)," he said. "Even though SuitSat did not transmit as intended, it still has had a very positive impact. Over the past two weeks, I have received e-mails from at least a dozen people who have become interested in Amateur Radio because of SuitSat."

Farmer says he's now looking forward to SuitSat-2.

From the outset, hearing the spacesuit-satellite's telemetry and voice messages was difficult even for the best-equipped stations. With his impressive antenna system, King had been copying SuitSat-1 better than most stations around the globe and posted several reports to the SuitSat and AJ3U Web sites.

As the end appeared near February 17, ARISS issued an urgent call for appropriately equipped Earth stations to make every effort to copy SuitSat-1's voice telemetry reports. ARISS US Hardware Manager Lou McFadin, W5DID, who was directly involved in the construction of the SuitSat-1 package, says he and others on his team followed the voltage reports with great interest.

"Your efforts to gather the telemetry data are very much appreciated and will contribute to further success should we get the opportunity to build a second SuitSat," McFadin said. Deployed from the International Space Station on February 3, SuitSat-1 outlasted its initially predicted one-week active life by at least one week. McFadin said once the battery voltage dropped below 9 V, all transmissions would cease, although the suit's onboard computer would continue to operate down to the 3 V level.

"We really appreciate the dedication and true amateur spirit of all those who have helped us monitor this unique and interesting experiment," McFadin said.

Extremely low transmitter output power has been one explanation for SuitSat-1's faint signal. AMSAT-NA calculations earlier this month suggested that SuitSat-1's transmitter likely was putting out between 1 and 10 mW instead of the 500 mW it was supposed to produce.

More information on the SuitSat-1 project, including QSL information, is available on the AMSAT Web site and on the SuitSat Web site.
 
GREEN COMET: "Comet Pojmanski (C/2006 A1) has a bright green head," says Chris Schur who took this picture yesterday at dawn from Payson, Arizona:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2006/28feb06/schur1_strip3.jpg

What makes a comet green? The atmosphere of the comet--called "the coma"--contains cyanogen (CN), a poisonous gas, and diatomic carbon (C2). Both of these substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight.

See for yourself. Comet Pojmanski (5th magnitude) is an easy target for backyard telescopes. Look for it left of Venus in the early morning sky:

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2006/28feb06/skymap_north.gif
 
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NASA aiming for May launch window

Tuesday, February 28, 2006; Posted: 5:43 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- NASA officials are hoping that the launch of the shuttle Discovery can take place in May, but still-vexing problems with foam breaking away during launch have not been resolved.

"An aggressive schedule can lead to a launch before the launch window closes in May," said space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale at a NASA news conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida Tuesday afternoon.

"I remain optimistic," he said. "There is a lot of work to be done. We won't proceed until we do the work we need to do to prove it's safe to fly."

NASA engineers said they have removed the source of a piece of foam that caused a scare during last summer's flight of Discovery.

"We have eliminated what we call the PAL ramp, the protuberance airload ramp, which was about a 37-pound piece of foam that we have eliminated off the tank," Hale said.

But tests need to be done to prove that the removal of that foam does not create any new safety problems.

"That is an engineering challenge, to prove the aerodynamics are still good on the tank," Hale said. "We believe eliminating that foam off the tank was critical to providing a safe flight vehicle."

Wind tunnel tests are under way in several locations, and they should show any critical changes in aerodynamics.

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I sure hope they hit this window and get the three proposed launches this year.

It's a shame that they are retiring the fleet by the end of 2010 without having the new fleet ready until 2012-2014.
 
JUPITER'S NEW RED SPOT: For centuries, the Great Red Spot has reigned supreme among storms on Jupiter. The anti-cyclone has 250 mph winds and is big enough to swallow two planet Earths. Jupiter has other storms, too, but none like the Great Red Spot.

Until now. A new red spot has appeared on Jupiter, about half the size of the original and nearly the same color. Amateur astronomer Christopher Go of the Philippines took its picture on February 27th:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2006/05mar06/go_strip.jpg

"Red Jr." was born 6+ years ago when three smaller storms collided. (Many astronomers believe the Great Red Spot was born the same way--by merger.) At first the new storm was white, the color of its progenitors, but now it is turning red, a sign of intensification. Will Red Jr. eventually grow to rival the Great Red Spot--or remain junior? No one knows. But you can watch, because both red spots are big enough to see through backyard telescopes
 
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Scientists Say Sun's Next Cycle Stronger

March 6, 2006, 7:33 PM EST

LOS ANGELES -- A new computer model suggests that the next solar cycle will be more active than the previous one, potentially spawning magnetic storms that will be more severe and disruptive to communication systems.

The next sunspot cycle will be between 30 percent to 50 percent more intense than the last one, scientists said Monday.

The cycle will also begin a year later than expected, in late 2007 or early 2008, and peak around 2012, said Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

The new prediction is at odds with previous forecasts, which suggested that the intensity of the next solar cycle would be measurably smaller.

Accurately predicting the intensity of the sunspot cycle, which occurs about every 11 years, allows scientists to anticipate solar storms, which are caused by solar flares, or the giant eruptions that burst out from the surface of the sun.

Solar storms, which eject billions of tons of plasma and charged particles into space, can produce dazzling northern lights, but also disrupt power lines, radio transmissions and satellite communication.

The last time the solar cycle peaked was in 2001. During the last cycle, solar storms caused extreme radio blackouts in the Pacific, but the storms were not as severe as the ones that occurred in the late 1950s.

"This prediction, if it's accurate, suggests we're potentially looking at more communication and navigation disruption," said Richard Behnke of the National Science Foundation, which funded the research.

For decades, scientists have tracked the solar cycle and appearance of sunspots, but they have been unable to accurately predict the intensity or timing of solar storms, which increase as the number of sunspots increases.

Dikpati, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said her team tested the new computer model using previous solar cycle data and had a 98 percent accuracy.

David Hathaway, a solar astronomer with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, does not doubt that the next sunspot cycle will be stronger than the previous one.

But Hathaway said his own research suggests that the next cycle will occur late this year -- earlier than what Dikpati predicted.

The current research is published in the latest Geophysical Research Letters. It was funded by National Science Foundation.
 
src

Red Planet Arrival: NASA's MRO Spacecraft Enters Mars Orbit

After seven months of interplanetary spaceflight, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) successfully reached the red planet Friday to take an in-depth look at the dusty world.

The $450 million spacecraft, aimed at tracking Mars’ watery past and hunting for landing sites to aid future missions, entered orbit at about 4:24 p.m. EST (2124 GMT) today after firing six main engines to slow itself from an 11,000 mile (17,702 kilometer) per hour gait.

“Today was picture perfect,” said James Graf, NASA’s MRO project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a post-orbital arrival mission briefing. "I thought today was a simulation because we came so close to being right on."

Howard Eiesen, MRO's flight system manager at JPL, added jokingly that his fortune cookie from Thursday night - which read 'A Thrilling Time is in your Future' - heralded Friday's success.

"Today we earned our 'O,'" Eisen said in the press briefing. "We are the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but we were not orbiting until today."

.
.
.

Aerobraking ahead

MRO has about six months of aerobraking maneuvers ahead of it to slow its initial elliptical orbit, the extremes of which range between 264.5 miles (425 kilometers) to 28,000 miles (45,061 kilometers) above Mars.

During that time, the probe will dip into Mars’ upper atmosphere, and use the atmospheric drag to slow and circularize its orbit down to the planned 190-mile (305-kilometer) path.

"Everything occurred almost down to the second," said Kevin McNeill, Lockheed Martin MRO program manager of today's events. "So there was no waiting. There was no anticipation. Everything performed the way it was supposed to."

Given a total clean bill of spacecraft health, aerobraking can begin on March 29, he told SPACE.com.

More than 550 aerobraking passes will allow MRO to get a head start on its science observations – set to begin in full in the fall – by taking measurements of the atmosphere.

"It's just going to knock your socks off when we get these instruments opened up at Mars," Zurek said.
 
LUNAR ECLIPSE: When the full moon rises on Tuesday evening, March 14th, you might notice something odd--a gray shadow darkening the moon's southern hemisphere. That is the shadow of Earth, and if you can see it, you've spotted a penumbral lunar eclipse.

Penumbral eclipses are not as dramatic as total eclipses. A penumbral eclipse involves only the pale fringe of Earth's shadow while a total eclipse happens in the shadow's dark red core. Both are fun to observe.

Maximum eclipse occurs between 6:18 p.m. and 8:18 p.m. EST on March 14th. Observers in Europe, Africa and eastern parts of North America are favored; the eclipse will not be visible from California and other western US states

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2006/12mar06/koehn_big.gif
 
src

The race to blast tourists into space

Monday, March 20, 2006

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- If floating weightless and peering down on a shimmering-blue Earth sounds appealing, you might consider being a space tourist.

As long as you've got a fat wallet.

Two years after the first privately financed space flight jump-started a sleepy industry, more than a dozen companies are developing rocket planes to ferry ordinary rich people out of the atmosphere.

Several private companies will begin building their prototype vehicles this summer with plans to test fly them as early as next year. If all goes well, the first tourist could hitch a galactic joy ride late next year or 2008 -- pending approval by federal regulators.

Unlike the Cold War space race between the United States and Soviet Union that sent satellites into orbit and astronauts to the moon, this competition is bankrolled by entrepreneurs whose competition could one day make a blast into space cheap enough for the average Joe.

"This time, it's personal. This space race is about getting 'us' into space," said space historian Andrew Chaikin.

For now, commercial space travel remains an exclusive club.

Over the past few years, three tourists have paid a reported $20 million each to ride aboard a Russian rocket to the orbiting international space station.

A fourth would-be tourist -- Lance Bass from the former boy band 'N Sync -- did astronaut training, but failed to come up with money for the trip.

The three who made it spent about a week weightless and described the experience as "paradise" and "wondrous." The most thrilling part for millionaire U.S. scientist Gregory Olsen, who blasted off last year, was viewing the swirling Earth from the dark of space.

Prospective prices for the next round of personal space flights aren't so astronomical -- a seat aboard one of the yet-to-be-built commercial spaceships will fetch between $100,000 to $250,000. Space entrepreneurs expect the price tag to drop once the market matures.

Tourists will get what they pay for.

Instead of days in space, the commercial spaceships under development will only reach suborbital space, a region about 60 miles up that is generally considered the beginning of the rest of the universe. Since the private spaceships lack the speed to go into orbit around Earth, the flights are essentially up and down experiences -- lasting about two hours with up to five minutes of weightlessness.

It's more of a ride than those offered by several companies that use Boeing 727s to produce a half-minute of weightlessness through a series of maneuvers about 25,000 feet up. Those flights, which generally sell for about $3,000, never reach space.

"It's like an upside-down bungee jump," said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. "There'll be a few moments to view the Earth and then you come right back down."

Here is a rundown of several companies that will start building their private spaceships this summer:

* The biggest name is Virgin Galactic, a space tourism firm founded by British billionaire tycoon Richard Branson. Branson has partnered with Burt Rutan, whose SpaceShipOne in 2004 became the first private manned craft to reach space, to build a fleet of suborbital commercial spaceships called SpaceShipTwo.

SpaceShipTwo is about the size of a corporate Gulfstream jet that can hold six tourists and two crew members. Like SpaceShipOne, it will be powered by a hybrid rocket motor and use a "feathering" technique to glide back to Earth.

The design of SpaceShipTwo is complete and construction is slated for this summer with test flights scheduled for late next year. The project's $100 million first phase is financed by Branson's Virgin Group, said Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn.

Virgin Galactic plans to fly the first passengers for $200,000 apiece by late 2008 or early 2009, with the first leaving from California's Mojave Desert and later flights from a proposed spaceport in New Mexico. The maiden flight would carry Branson and Rutan, among others, Whitehorn said.

"This is a project not without risk," Whitehorn said recently. "It's our goal to be the first ones to do it safely."

* Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Kistler is one of Virgin Galactic's biggest competitors. Rocketplane Kistler, whose main investor is American businessman George French, hopes to start test flights next January and fly commercially by next summer. French owns several businesses including a space education company in Wisconsin.

The company is building a souped-up, 42-foot-long suborbital Lear jet that can seat three passengers and a pilot. Unlike SpaceShipTwo, which would piggyback atop a mothership to a certain height, the Rocketplane XP would take off and land like an airplane using turbojets and rockets.

"It's the beginning of a whole new era of commercial space travel. Someone's got to do it and we want to be the first," said vice president John Herrington, a former NASA astronaut who will perform the suborbital test flights.

* Space Adventures, an Arlington, Virginia, space travel agency best known for brokering three tourists to the international space station, is the latest entrant.

Last month, Space Adventures announced a partnership with members of the Ansari family -- the major funders of the $10 million X Prize won by SpaceShipOne -- to develop Russian-designed suborbital rockets that would launch from a proposed spaceport in the United Arab Emirates by 2008.

Space tourism companies hope wary investors will provide financial backing once they can establish a safety record and prove there is sufficient demand.

"It's changed from being a giggle factor to being heralded as a new business," said Geoff Sheerin, president and chief executive of Canada-based PlanetSpace. Sheerin also founded Canadian Arrow, a private rocket company that unsuccessfully competed for the X Prize in 2004.

* PlanetSpace, backed by American businessman Chirinjeev Kathuria, is building a 54-foot-long, three-seat suborbital rocket that would launch from somewhere in the Great Lakes region and re-enter Earth by splashing into the water. It hopes to fly 2,000 passengers in the first five years, beginning in 2008.

Some market studies have shown the public has an attitude of "If you build it, we will come." Futron, a Bethesda, Maryland-based aerospace consulting firm, estimated that revenues in the infant space tourism industry could exceed $1 billion a year by 2021 with the greatest demand in suborbital flights in which passengers spend mere minutes in space.

Before tourists can lift off, several federal hurdles must be cleared. Federal regulations that will govern human space travel and spell out safety and training requirements are expected to be wrapped up this summer.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta last month told a gathering of space entrepreneurs that the government would move swiftly to grant space travel licenses to companies that can prove they can operate safely.

That's good news for people like Chaikin, the space historian.

"I've been hoping and dreaming all my life to go into space. Now I actually have a shot of doing it."
 
TOTAL ECLIPSE: On Wednesday, March 29th, the moon will pass in front of the sun, producing a solar eclipse visible from the eastern tip of Brazil, across the south Atlantic Ocean, throughout Africa, Europe, the Middle East and much of Asia.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2006/27mar06/koehn_strip_still.jpg

Inside the narrow path of totality, marked in red above, observers will glimpse the sun's corona, the diamond ring effect, and possibly some fiery solar prominences leaping up from behind the mountains of the moon. Outside the path of totality, the display will be quite different, but no less beautiful. Observers will see a crescent-shaped sun in the sky and crescent-shaped sunbeams on the ground. Pictures of all these things will appear on Spaceweather.com tomorrow:
 
THE VIEW FROM SPACE: When the moon's cool shadow sweeps across Turkey tomorrow, the International Space Station (ISS) will be there, too, orbiting 215 miles overhead. The station won't be fully inside the shadow--but it's going to be oh-so-close. The sun will be about 98% eclipsed.

Unfortunately, ISS astronauts won't see the sun. There's no window pointing in that direction, but there is a window pointing down. The view of the moon's shadow racing across the ground below should be magnificent.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0409/eclipse99_mir.jpg

Bill Cooke of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has created a movie of the view from "the station's nadir lab window. It begins with the boot of Italy off to the right," he explains, "and follows the station as it orbits over Turkey and Egypt." The black oval in Turkey is the simulated shadow.

http://science.nasa.gov/spaceweather/swpod2006/27mar06/iss_eclipse_032906.mov
 
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