Tag: NASA
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NASA shuffles crew for Boeing Starliner space taxi’s test flight due to medical issue
NASA astronaut Mike Fincke tests the Orion spaceship exit procedure at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. (NASA via YouTube) NASA says a medical issue is forcing a switch in the crew for the Boeing Starliner space taxi’s first crewed test flight to the International Space Station, currently scheduled for…
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Blue Origin plans New Shepard launch Wednesday
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated Jan. 20 to reflect launch postponement. Updated Jan. 21 with new target launch date. Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster on the launch pad. Credit: Blue Origin Blue Origin plans to launch its single stage New Shepard suborbital booster Wednesday as the commercial space company moves closer to flying people to the edge…
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Hubble Space Telescope team hits ‘reset’ to get balky camera back to doing science
The Hubble Space Telescope gets its final close-up after a shuttle servicing mission in 2009. (NASA Photo) NASA says the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 is back to doing science observations, a week after it went dark due to a telemetry glitch. Basically, engineers hit the reset button to clear up the telemetry…
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SpaceX’s Dragon cargo ship leaves space station and splashes down in the dark
SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo ship is released by the International Space Station’s robotic arm. (NASA Photo) SpaceX’s robotic Dragon cargo ship splashed down in the Pacific Ocean tonight, bringing science experiments and used hardware from the International Space Station back to Earth after dark. The Dragon delivered nearly 3 tons of food, supplies and experiments…
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Controllers troubleshoot problem with Hubble camera
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated Jan. 11 with correction regarding the field-of-view of the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument. Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis took this photo of the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. Credit: NASA The partial shutdown of the U.S. government could complicate efforts to troubleshoot a suspected hardware problem with the Hubble Space Telescope’s…
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Astronomers announce first exoplanets discovered by NASA’s TESS mission
Six months into its mission scanning the sky for planets around other stars, NASA’s orbiting TESS observatory has found three previously-undiscovered worlds and hundreds candidates requiring follow-up observations, the first batch of a potential haul of up to 10,000 exoplanet detections over TESS’s planned two-year mission, astronomers announced this week. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey…
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Hubble Space Telescope’s team works to revive camera amid NASA shutdown
NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel, perched on the end of the shuttle Atlantis’ robotic arm, helps to install the Wide Field Camera 3 during 2009 spacewalk to perform work on the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA Photo) Engineers are working to bring the Hubble Space Telescope’s wide-angle camera back into operation after a hardware problem knocked it…
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Government shutdown is putting a damper on science in Seattle and elsewhere
Arata Expositions’ Jason Edwards puts down a “Welcome” sign for the American Astronomical Society’s winter meeting at the Seattle Convention Center. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) It’s been called the “Super Bowl of Astronomy,” but when the American Astronomical Society’s winter meeting plays out in Seattle this week, some of the stars won’t be taking…
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Most distant object ever visited resembles a snowman
The Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69 — nicknamed “Ultima Thule” — appears as a dual-lobe contact binary in this photo captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft at a distance of around 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers). Credit: NASA/SWRI/JHUAPL LAUREL, Maryland — The first well-resolved image of the faraway chunk of rock fleetingly visited by NASA’s New…
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New Horizons scientists elated as Ultima Thule’s shape comes into view
At left is a composite of two images taken by New Horizons’ high-resolution Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), which provides the best indication of Ultima Thule’s size and shape so far. Preliminary measurements of this Kuiper Belt object suggest it is approximately 20 miles long by 10 miles wide (32 kilometers by 16 kilometers). An artist’s…