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AURORA WATCH: A solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, sparking intermittent auroras over northern Europe and Canada.

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/images2005/11apr05/Hachey1.jpg

The photograph above comes from Steve Hachey of Smithers, British Columbia, on April 12th. "The auroras weren't very bright," he says, but a 90-second exposure produced lovely results. More such auroras are possible tonight
 
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Discovery's External Tank Undergoes Tank Testing
With the Space Shuttle Discovery now at the launch pad, workers at Kennedy Space Center in Florida are preparing for the next crucial step in the Space Shuttle's Return to Flight -- a tanking test of Discovery's redesigned External Tank.

Beginning early Thursday morning, ground crews will fill Discovery's External Tank with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen fuel to evaluate how all the systems perform under "cryo-load" -- the condition when the tank is filled with two ultralow-temperature fuels. Meanwhile, crews will ready the orbiter's main propulsion system and the launch team will take the opportunity to inspect hardware.

Live coverage of the tanking test will be available on NASA TV beginning Thursday at 4:30 a.m. CDT (0930 GMT).

The Space Shuttle and its External Tank have undergone dozens of modifications in preparation for Return to Flight. The updates to the Shuttle system come in response to the Columbia accident and recommendations from accident investigators.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
 
SOLAR ECLIPSE: Sunset in the Virgin Islands--it's always pretty. On April 8th, it was out of this world. Witness this picture taken by Harry Martin of St. Croix:

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/08apr05c/Martin1_strip.jpg

Sunsets like this happen during a solar eclipse: the moon glides in front of the sun and takes a bite out of our star. The April 8th eclipse was visible from New Zealand to the Americas, producing weird sunsets, rings of fire and more:

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_08apr05_page4.htm
 
Yes this is amateur radio stuff, but it's on ISS

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/04/18/3/Expedition10-11-crews-th.jpg
New all-ham crew now safely aboard ISS (Apr 18, 2005) -- International Space Station Expedition 10 crew members Leroy Chiao, KE5BRW, and Salizhan Sharipov opened the hatches between the ISS and the newly arrived Soyuz transporter early Sunday, April 17, to welcome Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, and US Astronaut and ISS Science Officer and Flight Engineer John Phillips, KE5DRY, as well as European Space Agency Astronaut Roberto Vittori, IZ6ERU, of Italy. Krikalev, Phillips and Vittori docked with the ISS April 16. The five space travelers (photo) will conduct nearly eight days of joint operations. Expedition 11’s Krikalev and Phillips will spend about six months aboard the ISS. During his ISS visit, Vittori will conduct experiments aboard the station. On April 18, he conducted an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group QSO with two technical schools in Italy. One of the schools was named for wireless pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, and his daughter, Princess Elettra Marconi, assisted in the event and sent greetings to the astronauts. Vittori will return to Earth with the Expedition 10 crew of Chiao and Sharipov, which has been living aboard the space station since October. The three will depart for Earth Sunday, April 24, in the Soyuz that brought the Expedition 10 crew to the orbiting laboratory last fall. They’re scheduled to land that evening in Kazakhstan. Over the next few days, Krikalev, 46, and Phillips, 54, will receive extensive handover briefings from the Expedition 10 crew. NASA says a third crew member may arrive at the ISS on the space shuttle Atlantis. This is Krikalev’s second tour of duty aboard the ISS. He was part of the first ISS crew.
 
LUNAR ECLIPSE: Mark your calendar: there's going to be a lunar eclipse on April 24th. It's a "penumbral eclipse," which means the Moon only skims the pale outer fringes of Earth's shadow.

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/18apr05/Penumbra360b.gif

Penumbral eclipses are notoriously difficult to observe. Nevertheless, a subtle yet distinct shading should be visible across the northern half of the Moon during greatest eclipse, around 09:55 UT. For North Americans, that's Sunday morning at 2:55 a.m. PDT (5:55 a.m. EDT).
 
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Apollo 13 engineers to receive honor

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 Posted: 10:02 AM EDT (1402 GMT)

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A group of engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center used plastic bags, cardboard and duct tape to provide astronauts aboard Apollo 13 with clean air to breathe after their spacecraft was crippled by an explosion 35 years ago.

The engineers' work to save astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert was to be recognized Tuesday by a company that runs an engineering search engine. Engineers, astronauts and flight controllers were expected for a ceremony at the space center.

"It was actually a fair bit of very, very quick engineering work that they had to radio up," said John Schneiter, president of GlobalSpec, the New York-based company planning to honor the engineers. "They had to make it right the first time. ... It had to work and son of a gun, it did."

Sunday marked the 35th anniversary of the spacecraft's return to Earth. It was crippled by an oxygen tank that overheated and exploded, raising concerns the carbon dioxide the astronauts expelled from their lungs would eventually kill them. Two of Apollo's three fuel cells, a primary source of power, also were lost.

Ed Smylie, who oversaw NASA's crew systems division in 1970 and is now an aerospace consultant, is glad the engineering side of the mission will be recognized.

"The guys in the front room are the ones who are in the front lines and get a lot of attention," he said. "Those of us who are in the back room don't get a lot of attention."

Smylie said he was at home watching television when he learned there was a problem aboard Apollo 13. Within minutes, he was at the space center trying to come up with a solution to save the crew.

The crew had lithium hydroxide canisters to cleanse their spacecraft of carbon dioxide, but some of the backup square canisters were not compatible with the round openings in the lunar module, where the astronauts had moved from the command module to conserve power for re-entry.

"This was equivalent to being on a sinking ship," Schneiter said. "In this case, you are on a ship that was mortally wounded, and you were simply not going to be able to breathe in a couple of days."

Smylie and other engineers soon had a proposed solution to retrofit the canisters, but it took another day or two to build a mock-up and get instructions to the crew.

Among the biggest concerns was whether the astronauts had duct tape, Smylie said. He later learned duct tape was commonly used on the spacecraft to clean filters and for other tasks, such as taping bags of food to heating lamps.

"I felt like we were home free," he said. "One thing a Southern boy will never say is 'I don't think duct tape will fix it."'

While those within the agency may have been concerned, no one showed it, he said.

"If you saw the movie, it wasn't like that," Smylie said, adding there wasn't any hollering and screaming. "Everything is pretty calm, cool and collected in our business."

Haise said the device was tricky to build but it worked.

"Had someone not figured that out, we wouldn't have survived," he said.

The astronaut said he and his crew members remained calm despite the numerous problems they faced. "We had confidence the right people had been brought in and would work it out," he said.

Looking back, Smylie said, Apollo 13 turned out to be one of the space program's proudest moments.

"What could have been a horrible disaster turned out to be a great achievement," he said.
 
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/images/hdr_sts-114.gif

Launch Window Updated
Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-114 mission now has a targeted launch date of May 22, with a launch window extending to June 3.

With Discovery now at the launch pad, workers at Kennedy Space Center in Florida successfully completed the next crucial step in the Space Shuttle's Return to Flight -- a tanking test of Discovery's redesigned External Tank.

Last week, ground crews filled Discovery's External Tank with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen fuel to evaluate how all the systems perform under "cryo-load" -- the condition when the tank is filled with ultralow-temperature oxygen and hydrogen. Throughout the day, crews readied the orbiter's main propulsion system while the launch team took the opportunity to inspect hardware.

Another milestone in the Shuttle's Return to Flight was reached April 14 with the hatch closure of Raffaello, an Italian-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module that will carry supplies and experiments to and from the International Space Station.

The Space Shuttle and its External Tank have undergone dozens of modifications in preparation for Return to Flight. The updates to the Shuttle system come in response to the Columbia accident and recommendations from accident investigators.
 
LUNAR ECLIPSE: On Sunday morning, April 24th, the full Moon glided through the outer fringes of Earth's shadow, resulting in a "penumbral eclipse." This is what it looked like:

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/24apr05/Wastell1_strip.jpg

The shadowy darkening across the top of the Moon was, at best, subtle. Onlookers who didn't know an eclipse was in progress might not have noticed. The view from the Moon, on the other hand, was much more dramatic.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/images/lunareclipse/10075426_med2.gif
 
STRANGE RAINBOW: That's not an aurora! But it sure did look like one, says Mila Zinkova, who took this picture on April 3rd from the Big Island of Hawaii:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/24apr05/Zinkova1_strip.jpg

"Mila's telephoto shot has caught a rainbow fragment lighting a distant rain shower scudding over the ocean," explains atmospheric optics Les Cowley. "The 'bow curves low over the water because the sun was fairly high. When the sun is low rainbows are high and they sink lower as the sun climbs. Rainbows do not rise above the horizon when the sun is more than 42 degrees high and so in summer you must catch them within an hour or two of sunrise or sunset."
 
RAINBOWS IN THE NIGHT: You've seen rainbows. They appear after rain storms when sunlight bounces in and out of misty water droplets. The droplets act like prisms, dividing bright white sunbeams into colorful arcs. But have you ever seen a rainbow after dark? Photographer J. Paul Longchamp did this weekend in Tahiti:

http://www.spaceweather.com/moonbows/24apr05/longchamp.jpg

Rainbows require a source of light and some water droplets. In this case, the light came from the full Moon, with moist island air providing the prismatic droplets. The moon is almost full tonight. If it's humid where you live, watch out for rainbows in the night.
 
AURORA WATCH: On April 25th, between 1700 and 2100 UT, a solar filament exploded and hurled a coronal mass ejection into space: movie. The cloud is not heading directly toward Earth, but it might deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field tonight or tomorrow. Sky watchers in Alaska and Canada should be alert for auroras.
 
BIG SUNSPOT: Since it appeared on April 25th, sunspot 756 has tripled in size. It's now about five times wider than Earth and very dynamic. SOHO images show the 'spot changing shape hourly:

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/29apr05/midi360_strip.gif

The 'spot is a fine sight through properly-filtered telescopes. If you don't have one of those, try building a simple solar projector: it's easy.

Using an "H-alpha" filter tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen, Didier Favre of Los Angeles, CA, snapped this picture of sunspot 756 on April 26th when it was only twice the size of Earth:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/29apr05/favre1_strip.jpg


http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/29apr05/midi140.gif
 
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NASA Delays Discovery Launch Until July

Washington (AFP) Apr 29, 2005
NASA on Friday delayed for two months the launch of the space shuttle Discovery, over concerns that ice or pieces of insulating foam could break off and damage the orbiter, as in the deadly 2003 Columbia disaster.

"We are here to let you know officially that we will be moving the shuttle Discovery's return to flight launch window, or launch, from the May-to-early-June window to the mid-July window," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said at a press conference.

Discovery, which was wheeled to its launch platform earlier this month at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, had been scheduled to blast off on a mission to the orbiting International Space Station between May 15 and June 3.

Griffin said NASA had a number of "small fixes" it wanted to make before relaunching the space shuttle, including a review of what he described as "debris issues."

He also referred to "some issues that arose during the tanking operation of Discovery last week.

"No one thing, but the sum of all those things together necessitates that we move out six or seven weeks into the July window," he said.

"This is consistent with our overall approach to return to flight, which is that we're ... not going to rush to flight," he said. "And we want it to be right. So we're doing what we need to do to ensure that."

By delaying the launch, an anonymous source told The New York Times, NASA engineers will have more time to fix problems with fuel-tank sensors, which shut down the engines if the fuel level drops too low.

It will also allow for a closer review of the measures taken to prevent debris from the shuttle's external fuel tank from hitting the spacecraft on takeoff.

A stray piece of insulating foam pierced Columbia's protective outer skin on liftoff February 1, 2003, leading to its disintegration and the death of all seven astronauts on board upon its re-entry into the atmosphere.

The US space agency's three other shuttles have been grounded ever since.

Earlier this month, Griffin said that once the shuttle flights are back on track, NASA "will begin to examine the option to extend the service life for the Hubble Space Telescope" to 2010, in a reversal of his predecessor Sean O'Keefe's decision to let the telescope die.

Griffin said he intended to speed up the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) program, which is slated to replace the shuttle, to shorten the time between its expected birth in 2014 and the end of the shuttle program in 2010.

"It's a major priority today to reduce the gap between the shuttle and the CEV," he said at the time, adding that he agreed with government officials and lawmakers who consider the four-year gap excessive.
 
linuxgeek said:
SOLAR BLAST: This morning, just on the other side of the sun's eastern limb, something exploded. The blast hurled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) into space, but probably not toward Earth. Stay tuned for details.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/03may05/20050503_0142_c3_strip.gif

Above: This SOHO coronagraph image shows a bright CME racing away from the Sun on May 3rd at 0130 UT.
Click to expand...
So no cell phone and tv signal disturbance?
 
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http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads/2005-0503mro-lg.jpg

Next Mars Mission Arrives at the Cape

Summary - (May 3, 2005) The next mission to make the journey to the Red Planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers will assemble various components, and test everything to ensure it's ready for launch. If all goes well, the MRO will lift off in August atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket, and then make the journey to Mars. MRO will study both the surface and underground of Mars in tremendous detail, and survey potential future landing sites.

Full Story - A large spacecraft destined to be Earth's next robotic emissary to Mars has completedthe first leg of its journey, a cargo- plane ride from Colorado to Florida in preparation for an August launch. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is an important next step in fulfilling NASA's vision of space exploration and ultimately sending human explorers to Mars and beyond.

The spacecraft's prime mission will run through 2010. During this period, the project will study Mars' composition and structure, from atmosphere to underground, in much greater detail than any previous orbiter. It will also evaluate possible sites for future martian landings and will serve as a high-data-rate communications relay for surface missions.

"Great work by a talented team has brought Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to this milestone in our progress toward a successful mission," said Jim Graf of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., project manager for the mission.

The spacecraft arrived at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility on April 30 aboard a C-17 cargo plane and was taken to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to begin processing. It was built near Denver by Lockheed Martin Space Systems. Launch is scheduled for Aug. 10 at 7:53:58 a.m. EDT (4:53:58 a.m. PDT), at the opening of a two-hour launch window.

The spacecraft will undergo multiple mechanical assembly operations and electrical tests to verify its readiness for launch. A test this month will verify the spacecraft's ability to communicate through NASA's Deep Space Network tracking stations. A June test will check the deployment of the spacecraft's high gain communications antenna. Another major deployment test will check out the spacecraft's large solar arrays.

In July, the spacecraft will be filled with hydrazine fuel for the "Mars orbit insertion" engine burn, which will be used to reduce the velocity of the spacecraft and place it in orbit around Mars. The fuel also will be used for attitude-control propellant. On July 26 the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be encapsulated in the Atlas V fairing prior to being moved to its launch site on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Lockheed Martin Atlas V arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Antonov cargo plane on March 31 and was taken to the high bay at the Atlas Spaceflight Operations Center. The Atlas booster will be transported in May to the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 to be erected. The Centaur upper stage will be transported to that facility for hoisting atop the booster in June.

Prelaunch preparations will include a "wet dress rehearsal" in July, during which the Atlas V will be rolled from the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad on its mobile launch platform. The vehicle will be fully fueled with RP-1, liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and the team will perform a simulated countdown. The Atlas V will then be rolled back into the Vertical Integration Facility for final launch preparations.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be transported from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy Space Center to the Vertical Integration Facility on July 29. It will be hoisted atop the launch vehicle to join the Atlas V for the final phase of launch preparations. The spacecraft is scheduled to undergo a functional test on August 1, followed by a final week of launch vehicle and spacecraft closeouts.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project. International Launch Services, a Lockheed Martin joint venture, and Lockheed Martin Space Systems are providing launch services for the mission.

Information about Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is available online at http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro.
 
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Meteors from Halley's Comet: the eta Aquarids

The eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on May 5th and 6th. The best time to look, no matter where you live, is during the hours before local sunrise on both days.

This is mainly a southern hemisphere shower, but northern observers can see it, too. In the United States, for example, observers far from city lights might see 5 to 10 meteors per hour. In Australia or South America, rates are better, between 15 and 60 meteors per hour.

This year (2005) the eta Aquarid meteors will be streaming from a point in the sky coincidentally close to Mars. The red planet, which is approaching Earth for a close encounter in October 2005, is already eye-catching. Northern observers, step outside before sunrise, face east, and this is what you'll see:

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2005/06may05/skymap_north_strip.gif

Eta Aquarid meteors come from the most famous comet of all: Halley's Comet. Our planet passes close to the orbit of Halley's Comet twice a year. Although the comet itself is very far away [diagram] tiny pieces of Halley are still moving through the inner solar system. They're leftovers from the comet's many close encounters with the Sun. Each time Halley returns (every 76 years) solar heating evaporates about 6 meters of ice and rock from its nucleus! Debris particles called meteoroids, usually no bigger than grains of sand, gradually spread along the comet's orbit forming an elongated stream of space dust. Earth passes through the debris stream once in May and again in October.

The eta Aquarids are named after a star in the constellation Aquarius. The star has nothing to do with the meteor shower except that the shower's radiant happens to lie nearby. (The radiant of a meteor shower is a point in the sky from which the meteors appear to stream.) The eta Aquarid's sister shower in October is called the Orionids, after the constellation Orion.

The eta Aquarid radiant never climbs very far above the horizon in the northern hemisphere. That's why it is a better shower south of the equator. Most years northerners count about 10 eta Aquarid meteors per hour, while southerners see 3 to 6 times that many.

Northern sky watchers sometimes spot spectacular "Earth grazers," while the active eta Aquarid radiant is low on the horizon. These are meteors that skim horizontally through the upper atmosphere. "Earth grazers" are typically slow and dramatic, streaking far across the sky. The best time to look for Earthgrazers is 2:00 to 2:30 a.m. local time.

Middle-latitude sky watchers in both hemispheres will see the eta Aquarid radiant rise over the eastern horizon at approximately 2:30 a.m. local time. Aquarius is a fairly dim constellation. The nearest bright star is 1st magnitude Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Austrini. Fomalhaut is a good finder star for sky watchers in the south, but it's not much use to northerners because of its low altitude. In Sydney, Australia, for example, Fomalhaut will be visible at 4 a.m. at an elevation of +25 degrees, just above and westward of the shower's radiant.

Experienced meteor watchers suggest the following viewing strategy: Dress warmly. Bring a reclining chair, or spread a thick blanket over a flat spot of ground. Lie down and look up somewhat toward the east. Meteors can appear in any part of the sky, although their trails will tend to point back toward the radiant.

Notes:
Eta Aquarid meteoroids hit Earth's atmosphere traveling 66 km/s.
Typical eta Aquarid meteors are as bright as a 3rd magnitude star.
 
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