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SpaceX Launch to Space Station Reset for March 30

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SpaceX has confirmed it will target its next cargo mission launch to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, for 10:50 p.m. EDT, Sunday, March 30.

NASA Television launch coverage begins at 9:45 p.m. for the company's third contracted resupply mission to the orbital laboratory. A post-launch news conference will follow at approximately 90 minutes after liftoff. If for any reason the launch is postponed, the next launch opportunity is 9:39 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, with NASA TV coverage beginning at 8:30 p.m.

NASA TV also will air a prelaunch news conference at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 29, at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A 2 p.m. briefing on the science and technology cargo being delivered to the space station by SpaceX will follow.

A March 30 launch would result in SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft arriving at the station on Wednesday, April 2, at approximately 7 a.m. NASA TV coverage of rendezvous and berthing will begin at 5:45 a.m. for a 7 a.m. capture. Coverage of Dragon's installation will begin at 9:30 a.m.

MEDIA CREDENTIALING

Media may request accreditation onlineto attend the prelaunch events, including the launch pad photo opportunity, prelaunch news conference and launch, at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

The deadline for U.S. media to apply for accreditation is March 25. The deadline has passed for international media to apply.

Media credentials will be valid for mission activities from launch through splashdown at both the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Johnson Space Center in Texas.

For further information about media accreditation, contact Jennifer Horner at 321-867-6598.

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SpaceX Launch to Space Station Reset for March 30

Space Station 76: SXSW Review

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The Bottom Line

Sci-fi outing flirts with parody but is strangely sincere.

South By Southwest Film Festival, Visions

Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Matt Bomer, Marisa Coughlan, Kylie Rogers, Kali Rocha, Jerry O'Connell, Keir Dullea

Jack Plotnick

AUSTIN An oddball pastiche whose intent is hard to decipher, Jack Plotnick's Space Station 76 winks more than enough to be judged a comedy but behaves more like a sincere soap opera a sci-fi workplace drama about lonely souls whose personal connections are fraudulent, if they exist at all. Set on the kind of space station that could only have been designed in the 1970s, the pic's visuals and CG-shunning, model-loving FX will appeal to genre fans with a nostalgic streak. The presence of Liv Tyler and Patrick Wilson in leading roles is a further enticement, but probably isn't enough to make this peculiar outing more than midnight-movie fare in theaters.

Wilson plays Captain Glenn, the station's deeply unhappy leader, who drinks to forget a secret gay relationship with a former coworker. Jessica (Tyler) is that man's replacement, whose professionalism makes her stand out in a crew whose characters feel less like astronauts than the kind of Me Generation suburbanites whose floundering and philandering filled innumerable trashy novels.

The most easily recognized vintage stereotype here is Misty (Marisa Coughlan), the psychobabble-spewing pill-popper who attends to her own imagined emotional needs much more urgently than to those of her daughter (Kylie Rogers) or husband Ted (Matt Bomer). Ted, a maintenance man who fills the void in his love life with a hidden stash of pot, is of course subject to fantasies involving sad-eyed Jessica, who's quickly becoming a surrogate mother to his child.

From the opening shots in which a transport vehicle might as well be a terrestrial RV with its wheels replaced by booster rockets to scenes involving a toy-robot psychiatrist and his limited catalogue of preprogrammed self-help aphorisms, the film has all the trappings of a straight, if cheap, retro-aping comedy. But Plotnick has clearly directed his cast to take the film's melodramas seriously, and the script (created via improv by a handful of actors) musters just enough heft to make that plausible. A couple of scenes transcend their metafictional trappings, with actors unironically finding pathos in their characters' loneliness, and one can imagine a small cult of generous viewers going along on that ride. Though it doesn't quite hit the target, Plotnick's vision of the future of the past is peculiar enough to resist quick dismissal.

Production Companies: Rival Pictures, Om Films

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Space Station 76: SXSW Review

SpaceX Resets Space Station Launch with Revolutionary Rocket Legs and Robonaut Legs to March 30

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The Dragon spacecraft, filled with about 4,600 lbs of cargo bound for the space station, is mated with Falcon 9. Launch is rescheduled to March 30. Credit: SpaceX

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL Following last weeks sudden and late in the processing flow postponement of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch, SpaceX announced a reset of its next cargo mission launch for NASA to the International Space Station (ISS) to a new target date of Sunday, March 30.

The commercially developed Falcon 9 booster and Dragon cargo vessel are slated for a spectacular night time liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 10:50 p.m. EDT on March 30.

This mission, soaring to space under a resupply contract to NASA, could ignite a revolution in both rocketry and robotics.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket sports a quartet of never before tried landing legs and the Dragon freighter is loaded with a set of lanky legs to enable mobility in space for NASAs Robonaut 2 standing at the cutting of robotics technology.

Launch preparations were suddenly halted less than 72 hours prior to the then planned March 16 early morning launch because of unspecified technical issues concerning the sudden discovery of contamination, sources told me.

The Falcon 9 rocket with landing legs in SpaceXs hangar at Cape Canaveral, Fl, preparing to launch Dragon to the space station this Sunday March 30. Credit: SpaceX

To ensure the highest possible level of mission assurance and allow additional time to resolve remaining open items, the team is taking additional time to resolve open items and ensure SpaceX does everything possible on the ground to prepare for a successful launch, according to a statement from SpaceX.

Several sources told me that the problem related to contamination that was found in the unpressurized truck section at the rear of the Dragon spacecraft.

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SpaceX Resets Space Station Launch with Revolutionary Rocket Legs and Robonaut Legs to March 30

Lockheed Martin Researchers Achieve Breakthrough In Robotics For Space

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Fri, Mar 21, 2014

In a breakthrough that will help make it possible for astronauts and robots to work together in deep space, researchers at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (ATC), working with NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station, have demonstrated coordinated control of robots in space by astronauts in space and operators on the ground. The breakthrough is the first-ever demonstration of such collaborative tele-operations. The maneuvers create new opportunities to extend the reach of human and robotic missions in Earth orbit and beyond.

Astronaut Karen Nyberg and ATC engineer Humberto Ormeno used an ATC-developed, 3-D user interface to command NASA's Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Re-orient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) robots on the space station. Inside the space station, the robots (each about the size of a soccer ball) were commanded in "follow-the-leader" exercises and simulated approach-and-docking maneuvers, like those required for in-space assembly of large space structures and asteroid exploration. There is also flexibility within the system, meaning automated control of one or more robots can be combined with manual control of another.

Remote commanding of robots in space, or tele-operation, poses several unique challenges. Commands and telemetry can take one to three seconds to travel between space and the ground via satellite relays, forcing remote operators to predict the effects of their actions using old data. Delicate components designed for weightlessness can be damaged by accidental collisions or even exhaust gases produced by other satellites, so safe maneuvering is essential. The work on the space station is demonstrating how to deal with the time delays associated with signal transfer from the ground.

"The ATC has started to confront these challenges by performing multiple experiments with the SPHERES robots, through a no-cost Space Act Agreement with the International Space Station National Laboratory Office," said Dr. Nelson Pedreiro, ATC director of Science and Technology. "This technology exemplifies how breakthroughs can be achieved in a cost-effective and agile manner."

"Supervising a team of robots in microgravity requires intuitive and informative user interfaces so operators can maintain control over sensitive maneuvers without being overwhelmed by details," says Andrew Zimdars, who leads the ATC effort. "SPHERES enables us to work with the astronauts who will command future exploration missions and develop software technologies that meet their needs."

(SPHERES image provided by NASA)

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Lockheed Martin Researchers Achieve Breakthrough In Robotics For Space

Space station astronaut shares stories about missions

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Astronaut Karen Nyberg speaks Thursday at NASA Glenn Research Center about the end of her mission. After spending months in space aboard the International Space Station, she returned to Earth in November aboard a Russian capsule. She said that after they landed, she was sitting upside-down strapped into her seat and they left her until last after the Olympic torch, which was carried into space, was removed. BRUCE BISHOP/CHRONICLE

CLEVELAND Karen Nyberg has had a view of the world that most people will never see.

An astronaut for NASA, she spent six months living and working on the International Space Station as part of the Expedition 6 crew. During the expedition, the crew completed 2,656 orbits of the Earth while traveling more than 70 million miles.

The 44-year-old said spending time away from her family was hard, but theres nowhere shed rather be than in space.

If I can just go, like that, and live there, and be there, and have my family with me, that would be fantastic. Its really a neat place; its an amazing place to live, she said.

Now in her post-flight period, Nyberg is enjoying spending time with her husband, also an astronaut, and their 4-year-old son. Nyberg is also traveling the United States to discuss her experiences in space, stopping in Cleveland on Thursday at NASAs Glenn Research Center.

The center played a role in Nybergs expedition.

Nyberg supported several experiments that were managed by Glenn, including the capillary flow experiment, which examines liquids behavior in microgravity environments. The experiment was designed to allow NASA to better design systems to process liquids aboard spacecraft, such as liquid fuel tanks, thermal fluids and water processing for life support, according to NASA.

Nyberg said during downtime she worked on a square for a quilt project. She said the simplest things on Earth are very difficult and time consuming in space. Its not as simple as just holding down a piece of material and cutting.

Other experiments included combustion and flame extinguishing studies. The Glenn Research Center also designed improved harnesses for running on the treadmill in space with help from the Cleveland Clinic.

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Space station astronaut shares stories about missions

Google's Project Tango headed to International Space Station

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Googles Project Tango, the prototype smartphone packed with sensors so it can learn and sense the world around it, is heading to the International Space Station.

Two of the Tango phones are due to be launched to the ISS on the upcoming Orbital 2 mission, which is scheduled to launch in May and take supplies to the station. The phones will be used as part of a NASA project thats developing robots that could one day fly around the inside or outside of the space station, or even be used in NASAs planned mission to land on an asteroid.

Work on the robots is already going on at NASAs Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, and this week the space agency let a small group of reporters visit its lab and see some of the research.

Three Spheres satellites float inside the International Space Station.

The phones, which are being supplied to a limited number of developers at present, were unveiled by Google a month ago. They include several cameras and infrared range-finding so the phone can build up a three-dimensional model of its surroundingsa significant difference from current handsets that can see only a two-dimensional world through a single camera.

Google has already shown the phones being used to build up a detailed map of the interior of a home or office, but NASA has much bigger plans. At Ames, which is just minutes from Googles Mountain View headquarters, researchers have attached a Tango handset to a robot development platform called a Sphere.

Technically an 18-sided polyhedron, each Sphere is about the size of a soccer ball and self-powered. They can free-fly around the inside of the ISS thanks to carbon dioxide-powered thrusters, said Chris Provencher, Smart Spheres project manager at NASA.

The Spheres have already been used in developing autonomous equipment. The space agency conducted a Spheres test with a Nexus S smartphone as part of Shuttle mission STS-135 in 2011, but the Tango phones promise more capabilities.

We are researching how effective Project Tangos vision-based navigation capabilities are for performing localization and navigation of a mobile free flyer on ISS, said Andres Martinez, Spheres Manager at NASA.

Specifically, we are researching how well the 3-D modeling and visual odometry can be used to let the [Spheres] free flyer learn its environment and maneuver through it based on what it sees, said Martinez. This is in contrast to the current Spheres localization system, which relies on fixed sensors in the environment to help the Spheres track its position.

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Google's Project Tango headed to International Space Station

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time – Nefarious Space Station – Shanon Charms the Guards – Video

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Ratchet Clank Future: A Crack In Time - Nefarious Space Station - Shanon Charms the Guards
Nefarious Space Station - Shanon Charms the Guards Ratchet Clank Future: A Crack In Time OST Music by Boris Salchow.

By: supersaiyan13100

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Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time - Nefarious Space Station - Shanon Charms the Guards - Video


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