The repairs made by the Atlantis Space Shuttle crew in their historic eleven day mission will enable the Hubble Space Telescope to see farther into our universe than ever before.  It was quite a ride for STS-125.

• Five spacewalks extended Hubble’s lifespan until at least the year 2014
• Replaced gyroscopes, batteries and science data transmitter
• Increased the space telescope’s power 10 x 70 times
• Installed new instruments (like the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) and thermal blankets
• Repaired two existing instruments

Some of the astronauts were blogging from space.  Mission specialist Mike Massimino is on Twitter as astro_mike.

More shuttle news at www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/

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NASA has a great end-of-year review on their website nasa.gov.  The space agency achieved some great accomplishments in 2008:  A Mars landing with the Phoenix Lander, stunning photographs from other planets in our solar system, major additions to the International Space Station, a joint lunar science mission with India, progressed toward the goal of returning astronauts to the moon, and celebrated two important anniversaries.

NASA celebrated the tenth year in operation of the International Space Station (ISS), and also celebrated their fifty years of operation as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  The Apollo lunar program also hit the forty year mark, so this was quite a year for NASA and space exploration.

NASA’s 50th Anniversary site has animation, video and audio clips of historic moments from the past fifty years of space exploration.

Explore their amazing timeline at www.nasa.gov/50th

www.nasa.gov/history

www.nasa.gov

NASA announced today communications from the Phoenix Mars Lander have ceased.  The expected power drain on the spacecraft amid the onset of Martian winter has finally signaled the end of a very successful mission.  There’s just not enough sunlight to recharge the batteries.

The good news; NASA got more than the anticipated amount of scientific data.  More than 25,000 pictures, soil analysis and detailed weather observations from 152 days on Mars contributed to years of scientific data received by project teams for NASA, JPL and the University of Arizona.

So far scientists have discovered small concentrations of salts, a mildly alkaline soil and calcium carbonate, a marker of effects of liquid water.  The Phoenix Lander also coordinated with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to perform simultaneous ground and orbital observations of Martian weather.

The study continues into the history of the Martian environment, as the next Mars mission gets ready for launch; the Mars Science Laboratory.

View the latest pictures from the Phoenix Mars Lander at www.nasa.gov.

Mission engineers at NASA’S Jet Propulsion Laboratory are looking for ways to conserve power onboard the Phoenix Mars Lander.  The spacecraft has far surpassed it’s lifetime expectancy by lasting into a fifth month of functionality.  It was only scheduled to last for three months after landing in the Martian polar region.

As autumn weather conditions deteriorate and temperatures fall, the Phoenix Mars Lander uses more power than it generates, so it’s only a matter of time before the robot explorer will expire.  It’s a real tribute to the engineering teams how well this spacecraft has exceeded it’s intended capacity for scientific exploration.

It’s no wonder the lander is starting to shut down.  The weather conditions on planet Mars in the northern hemisphere are pretty fierce, and getting more extreme as the planet shifts into it’s autumn phase.  Huge dust storms and atmospheric ice clouds block out sunlight to solar panels that generate power to spacecraft.  Extreme temperatures range from -141 degrees (F) overnight to -50 degrees (F) during the day.

NASA The Latest from Mars www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars

This is the most awesome multimedia site I’ve ever seen; it’s dedicated to NASA’s 50th Anniversary, and has animation, video and audio clips of historic moments in the past fifty years of space exploration…

www.nasa.gov/externalflash/50th/main.html

Explore the amazing fifty year history of American’s space program as NASA celebrates it’s 50th Anniversary…

www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/historyLetter.html

http://history.nasa.gov/

50 Years of NASA History (The Space Agency Press Release:)

NASA’s birth was directly related to the launch of the Sputniks and the ensuing race to demonstrate technological superiority in space. Driven by the competition of the Cold War, on July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, providing for research into the problems of flight within Earth’s atmosphere and in space.

After a protracted debate over military versus civilian control of space, the act inaugurated a new civilian agency designated the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  The agency began operations on Oct. 1, 1958.

And life on earth has never been the same since.

Looking at today’s headlines, it would appear that it’s the end of the world…

Dow finishes below 10,000, Oil prices plunge below $90, Financial turmoil goes global, Pakistan deports 50,000 Afghan refugees, McCain calls Obama a liar, Man kills family and himself over financial problems, and Small asteroid to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Hollywood has made several really bad movies based on the scenario of a killer asteroid impacting Earth. The storyline usually involves cataclysmic damage to our planet. But in real life, there are several organizations involved in tracking these NEO’s, or Near-Earth Objects.

NASA’s Near-Earth Object Office estimates objects of this size enter Earth’s atmosphere once every few months. The asteroid measures several feet in diameter, but is not expected to make landfall. Instead it is expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in a brilliant natural fireworks display, somewhere over Africa.

The small asteroid is designated as 2008 TC3. Details are at www.nasa.gov

There’s an amazing story about survival from the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia.  Just a few months after Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry, searchers recovered pages from Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon’s diary.  They had survived a 37-mile fall to earth through extreme heat and cold, and were recovered from a field just outside Palestine, Texas.

That was in the spring of 2003.  Now five years later, part of the restored diary will be on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

The entire story is at http://hosted.ap.org

We all know about the National Hurricane Center website run by the National Weather Service, but did you know NASA collects massive data on hurricanes from earth orbiting satellites?

Check out this NASA web page of amazing satellite imagery with a lot of interesting data, and even video of Hurricane Ike.

www.nasa.gov

NASA News Release: 08-136 May 31, 2008

Space shuttle Discovery and a seven-member crew has launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to deliver and install a Japanese laboratory on the International Space Station.

The mission, designated STS-124, is the second of three flights to launch components to complete the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory.  Discovery is carrying Kibo’s tour bus-sized Japanese Pressurized Module, or JPM, which will be the station’s largest module.  The shuttle astronauts will work with the three-member station crew and ground teams around the world to install the JPM and Kibo’s robotic arm system.

Joining Kelly on Discovery’s 14-day flight are Pilot Ken Ham and Mission Specialists Karen Nyberg, Ron Garan, Mike Fossum, Greg Chamitoff and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

Garan and Fossum will conduct three spacewalks during the mission.  Chamitoff will replace current station crew member Garrett Reisman, who has lived on the outpost since mid-March.  Chamitoff will return to Earth on Endeavour’s STS-126 mission, targeted for Nov. 10.

NASA is providing continuous television and Internet coverage of Discovery’s mission, which is the 123rd shuttle flight, the 35th for Discovery and the 26th shuttle mission to the station.

NASA Television features live mission events, daily mission status news conferences and 24-hour commentary.

NASA TV is webcast at:  www.nasa.gov/ntv

JPL/NASA/University of Arizona News Release: 2008-090 May 30, 2008

Scientists have discovered what may be ice that was exposed when soil was blown away as NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft landed on Mars on Sunday May 25th.  The possible ice appears in an image the robotic arm camera took underneath the lander, near a footpad.

“We could very well be seeing rock, or we could be seeing exposed ice in the retrorocket blast zone,” said Ray Arvidson of Washington University , St. Louis , Mo., co-investigator for the robotic arm.  “We’ll test the two ideas by getting more data, including color data, from the robotic arm camera.  We think that if the hard features are ice, they will become brighter because atmospheric water vapor will collect as new frost on the ice.

Testing last night of a Phoenix instrument that bakes and sniffs samples to identify ingredients identified a possible short circuit.  The instrument is the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer.  It includes a calorimeter that tracks how much heat is needed to melt or vaporize substances in a sample, plus a mass spectrometer to examine vapors driven off by the heat.  The Thursday, May 29, tests recorded electrical behavior consistent with an intermittent short circuit in the spectrometer portion.

“We have developed a strategy to gain a better understanding of this behavior, and we have identified workarounds for some of the possibilities,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona , Tucson , lead scientist for the instrument.

The latest data from the Canadian Space Agency’s weather station shows another sunny day at the Phoenix landing site with temperatures holding at minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit) as the sol’s high, and a low of minus 80 degrees Celsius (minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit).  The lidar instrument was activated for a 15-minute period just before noon local Mars time, and showed increasing dust in the atmosphere.

“This is the first time lidar technology has been used on the surface of another planet,” said the meteorological station’s chief engineer, Mike Daly, from MDA in Brampton , Canada .  “The team is elated that we are getting such interesting data about the dust dynamics in the atmosphere.”

“We have evaluated the performance of the spacecraft on the surface and found we’re ready to move forward.  While we are still investigating instrument performance such as the anomaly on TEGA [Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer], the spacecraft’s infrastructure has passed its tests and gets a clean bill of health,” said David Spencer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., deputy project manager for Phoenix.

“We’re still in the process of checking out our instruments,” Phoenix project scientist Leslie Tamppari of JPL said. “The process is designed to be very flexible, to respond to discoveries and issues that come up every day. We’re in the process of taking images and getting color information that will help us understand soil properties. This will help us understand where best to first touch the soil and then where and how best to dig.”

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver . International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel , Switzerland ; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus , Denmark ; Max Planck Institute, Germany ; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

For more about Phoenix visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu