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Record-Setting 33 Tiny 'Cubesats' Launched From Space Station

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A record release of 33 CubeSats from the International Space Station ended Friday after a methodical series of deployments of miniature Earth imaging satellites for San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc.

The CubeSat constellation, released in pairs over a 17-day period, included 28 satellites for Planet Labs and five spacecraft for private engineering research firms and institutions in Lithuania and Peru.

The deployments began Feb. 11 as the CubeSats sprang out of pods mounted on the end of the space station's Japanese robotic arm.

The CubeSats were launched to the orbiting complex in January inside an Orbital Sciences Corp. Cygnus cargo craft. Astronauts transferred the payloads, sealed inside more than a dozen NanoRacks deployers, to the space station's Kibo laboratory and through an airlock to the vacuum of space. [Tiny Satellites Launch From Space Station (Photos)]

NanoRacks LLC, a Houston-based company providing commercial research opportunities on the space station, sponsored the CubeSat deployments for Planet Labs and other customers. Spaceflight Inc., a firm specializing in launch services for small satellites, partnered with NanoRacks to provide the CubeSat launch opportunities.

"This is the beginning of a new era in space commerce," said Jeff Manber, NanoRacks CEO, in a press release. "We're helping our customers get a two year head start in space. They don't have to wait around for a dedicated launch to space but can instead catch the next rocket to space station. We want to thank NASA and JAXA for being wonderful partners, as well as Spaceflight Inc., for their help with customers. Without these organizations, this couldn't have happened."

The 28 CubeSats for Planet Labs will return imagery of Earth with a resolution between 3 and 5 meters, or between 10 and 16 feet. Planet Labs constructed the satellites, each about the size of a loaf of bread, at the company's San Francisco headquarters.

The Planet Labs constellation, known as Flock 1, will monitor natural disasters, deforestation, agricultural yields and other environmental changes. The company says the satellites will allow scientists and the public to track changes to Earth's surface at an unprecedented frequency.

It is the largest fleet Earth observation satellitesever launched.

Because the satellites were deployed from the International Space Station, the Flock 1 constellation is limited to observing Earth between 52 degrees of the equator.

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Record-Setting 33 Tiny 'Cubesats' Launched From Space Station

Refueling in space could extend satellites lives and spacecrafts travels

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5 hours ago Mar. 7, 2014 - 12:11 PM PST

Just as with a car, regular maintenance will extend a satellites lifetime and ensure that a problem like running out of fuel doesnt cut its usefulness short.But reaching a satellite to deliver much-needed services can be difficult and expensive when a satellite is orbiting the Earth.

NASA is testing a few tools that would make it much easier to repair and refuel satellites even those that were never designed to receive maintenance. The agency just successfully tested a robotic arm refueling system on the ground and is now gearing up to bring it to the International Space Station for further tests.

With more than 400 satellites in space that could benefit from robotic servicing, we thought a refueling test was the best place to start, NASA Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office associate director Frank Cepollina said in a NASA post. We wanted to demonstrate technologies that build life-extension capabilities and jumpstart a discussion about new ways to manage assets in space.

NASA tests its robotic refueling arm on Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA.

NASA names extended human exploration as one inspiration for the project. If we refuel spacecraft once theyve left Earth, it could help them travel farther than theyve ever traveled before. Like the satellites, their use wouldnt be limited by how much fuel they can pack into their hull.

MIT expanded on that idea this week with a proposal to store extra rocket fuel in space. Researchers there focus on spacecraft traveling between the Earth and moon, where they could meet up with a refueling depot to pick up an extra tank of fuel. Ships heading back to Earth could drop off any extra tanks for future ones to pick up. The tanks would be transferred by a robot or astronaut.

That kind of flexibility could help lunar exploration missions visit more remote parts of the moon, which earlier lunar missions passed up due to the larger amount of fuel that would have been needed.

Daisy-chaining fuel depots even farther into space could allow missions to venture much farther than they do today and ease travel to planned destinations like Mars.

Whatever rockets you use, youd like to take full advantage of your lifting capacity, MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics professor Jeffrey Hoffman said in the release. Most of what we launch from the Earth is propellant. So whatever you can save, theres that much more payload you can take with you.

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Refueling in space could extend satellites lives and spacecrafts travels

SpaceX Dragon Capsule Suffers Glitch after Launch to Space Station

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The Dragon capsule is due to deliver 544 kilograms of scientific experiments and supplies to the space station on Saturday

SpaceX, Ben Cooper

This story was updated at 10:45 a.m. ET.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A privately built unmanned spacecraft launched for NASA by the commercial spaceflight company SpaceX blasted into orbit Friday (March 1), but has experienced some sort of malfunction after separating from its rocket, the company says.

The robotic Dragon space capsule launched into orbit atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket in what appeared to be a smooth liftoff from a pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 10:10 a.m. ET (1510 GMT). But once in orbit, SpaceX officials reported a problem just after spacecraft separation, when the Dragon capsule was expected to deploy its solar arrays.

"It appears that, although it achieved Earth orbit, Dragon is experiencing some type of problem right now," SpaceX's John Insprucker said during the company's launch webcast.

The glitch appears to be related to Dragon's thrusters, which allow the capsule to maneuver in orbit.

"Issue with Dragon thruster pods," SpaceX founder Elon Musk wrote on Twitter. "System inhibiting three of four from initializing. About to command inhibit override." [Photos: SpaceX's Third Launch to Space Station]

SPACE.com will provide updates as new information is available.

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SpaceX Dragon Capsule Suffers Glitch after Launch to Space Station

Dark Matter Signal Possibly Registered on International Space Station

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The onboard Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer has detected what is thought to be dark matters signature antimatter particles, but it cannot yet pin down their origin

AMS/NASA

A $2-billion particle detector mounted on the International Space Station has registered an excess of antimatter particles in space, the experiments lead scientist announced April 3. That excess could come from fast-spinning stellar remnants known as pulsars and other exotic, but visible sources within the Milky Way galaxy. Or the antiparticles might have originated from the long-sought dark matter, the hypothetical massive particles that constitute some 27 percent of the universe.

Dark matter makes its presence felt by its gravitational pull, but exactly what it is has remained a puzzle. Some popular explanations for dark matters identity suggest that when two dark-matter particles collide, they annihilate to produce antimatter electrons, or positrons. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), delivered to the space station in 2011 during the penultimate space shuttle mission, was built to detect positrons and other high-energy particles streaming through space, in part to investigate the nature of dark matter. The detector has now collected some 25 billion cosmic-ray particles, including 6.8 million electrons and positrons. The fraction of positrons in the particle mix exceeds what would be naively expected in the absence of dark matter or other unaccounted sources, but the new data lack a distinctive feature predicted of dark matter annihilations.

Dark matter collisions would produce relatively more high- than moderate-energy positrons. But the rise in positrons with increasing energy would continue only up to a point. Beyond a certain energy level, the number of positrons would fall off steeply, AMS spokesperson and Nobel laureate Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explained in a seminar at CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics. The positrons could also come from nearby pulsars, and in such a case the positrons will have a slow drop-off at higher energies, Ting said. So the way they drop off tells you everything.

The AMS data indeed show an increasing share of positrons toward higher energies, but no drop-off, so the origin of the excess particles remains unclear. The European PAMELA mission and NASAs Fermi spacecraft have found similar trends in recent years, but Ting called AMS the first experiment to probe in detail the nature of this excess with high sensitivity and precision. The research will appear in the April 5 issue of Physical Review Letters.

Ting only presented data on positrons with energies of about 350 giga-electron-volts or less but said that AMS will in the coming years catalogue particles up to 1,000 giga-electron volts. So the experiment may soon reveal or disprove the presence of a positron cutoff at higher energies, which would provide a clue to the source of the particles: a steep drop would point to dark matter, and a gradual decline would indicate pulsars are the originators of the positrons.

When pressed by colleagues at the CERN seminar to discuss any data AMS has already collected on higher-energy particles, Ting demurred. We will publish things when we are absolutely sure, he said, repeatedly sounding notes of caution and calling for patience. I think that no one is foolish enough to repeat what we are doing, he said of the experiment, which was some 18 years in the making. So we want to make sure we are doing it correctly.

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Dark Matter Signal Possibly Registered on International Space Station

US and Russia Still Friends in Space

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The crew orbiting Earth on the International Space Station is just as chummy as ever despite the tension between the U.S. and Russia over the situation in Ukraine.

The international team includes three Russians, two Americans, and one Japanese.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was asked during a budget teleconference what his game plan was if the situation between Russia and the United States escalates.

Bolden, a former astronaut, said he wasn't particularly worried, and reminisced about commanding the first joint U.S.-Russian space shuttle mission with the legendary Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev.

The ISS is jointly run by the U.S., Russia, Canada and Europe through 2020, though NASA would like to continue operations through 2024. This international cooperation is something that is unique.

"The space station is a remarkable engineering achievement, but more importantly it is a wonderful example of international diplomacy," Neal Lane with the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, told ABC News.

Since the space shuttle was retired US astronauts rely on a Russian Soyuz to get back and forth to the space station. NASA pays Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, $71 million per seat for each astronaut. Russia needs the money, the US needs the ride.

NASA wants very much to get its own ride. hence its proposed budget for 2015 escalates funding for private commercial transportation to develop its own spaceship to get to the space station by 2017. So for the next few years it pays to play nice with Russia.

For the astronauts and cosmonauts who live on the orbiting outpost getting along is easy. They share food and camaraderie and are part of an exclusive cadre of people who have a rare view of our planet.

Astronaut Cady Coleman says the view is life-changing.

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US and Russia Still Friends in Space

Ukraine Crisis: Russian Roulette in Space?

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Rocky Russian relations could leave U.S. astronauts without rides to the International Space Station.

Since NASA retired its fleet of space shuttles in 2011, Russia has had a monopoly on flying crews to the orbital outpost. The only other country currently flying people in space is China, which is not a member of the 15-nation space station partnership.

That leaves the United States in a vulnerable position as it ponders options to defuse a tense standoff between Russia and Ukraine.

PHOTOS: Ukraine Uprising's Most Violent Days

For now, the U.S.-Russian space partnership is insulated from the political whirlwind generated by Russia's decision to move troops into the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea last week, fueling fears of a full-fledged invasion.

"We are continuing to monitor the situation," NASA administrator Charles Bolden told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday.

"Everything for us continues to be nominal," he said.

Bolden noted that the space station has been through "multiple international crises" since crews began living there full-time on Nov. 2, 2000. That includes the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over break-away regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

NEWS: Can Revolutions Like Ukraine's Spread Across the World?

"NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, have maintained a professional, beneficial and collegial working relationship through the various ups and downs of the broader U.S.-Russia relationship and we expect that to continue throughout the life of the (space station) program and beyond," NASA added in a statement.

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Ukraine Crisis: Russian Roulette in Space?

Call of Duty: Ghosts Gameplay – Team Deathmatch on Sovereign – W/Commentary – Video

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Call of Duty: Ghosts Gameplay - Team Deathmatch on Sovereign - W/Commentary
See The Full Call of Duty Ghosts Series Here: http://goo.gl/hJVF5k Next CoD Ghosts Episode Here: http://youtu.be/x4EROERa1e4 Call of Duty Ghosts: Team Deathm...

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Call of Duty: Ghosts Gameplay - Team Deathmatch on Sovereign - W/Commentary - Video

Let’s Play Space Engineers – Episode 93: Space Station Project Part 22 – Video

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Let #39;s Play Space Engineers - Episode 93: Space Station Project Part 22
On this episode of Space Engineers, we continue the Space Station Project. This time we make some minor tweaks adjustments and do an overview of all the th...

By: Sleepless Knights Studios

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Let's Play Space Engineers - Episode 93: Space Station Project Part 22 - Video

International Space Station – ISS, passing over Porto Alegre RS on april 3rd 2014 – Video

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International Space Station - ISS, passing over Porto Alegre RS on april 3rd 2014
Estaco Espacial Internacional (ISS) passando sobre Porto Alegre - RS. 03 de Abril de 2014 as 04:31:56 da madrugada. Event Time Altitude Azimuth Distance (km...

By: Giovani Tonel

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International Space Station - ISS, passing over Porto Alegre RS on april 3rd 2014 - Video


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