tagged w/ LRO
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Beautiful images, beautiful launches and awesome new features on your SpacePod for June 30th, 2010
Lets take a look at some stunning images, shall we? We start or journey with an amazing picture taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO. With the Wide Angle Camera pointed at Earth, the LRO team took this awesome view of our home planet. The top right of the picture at around 2:00 is the North Pole. You can also see Japan and Australia from here. I think I see a desktop wallpaper being generated out of this. Oh wait, we already did that. Head over to the Wallpapers, Ringtones and Downloads section of Spacevidcast to grab that one.
Here is an amazing shot of an F-15 in the sky. What makes this space related? If you look at the bottom of the picture you can make out both Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Launch Pads, 39A and B. These images were taken by John Peltier and look just... WAIT... IS THAT A SHUTTLE LAUNCHING? Yes, if I'm not mistaken that's Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-132. If you look veeeery closely you can see the Spacevidcast media tent. OK, maybe not. These photos are just too good for desktop wallpapers, these are for framing. And if you want to get your own print copy you can do that at the URL on your screen. Prices start at around $8.00 US and I think this would make a great addition to your space gallery.
We've all seen the Falcon 9 launch video before, but most sites, including our own only had low quality SD from the launch itself that buffered and buffered and buffered. Fortunately SpaceX has released this epic video in HD of the launch itself.
Speaking of SpaceX, Falcon 9 flight 2 is coming along nicely. On June 27th, 2010 in McGregor Texas SpaceX performed a 40 second static firing test of the next 9 Merlin engines to be used on the first stage of Falcon 9 Flight 2. Say that three times fast!
I don't know about you, but I was just waiting for the entire structure to just rip from the ground and launch to space. Falcon 9 Flight 2 is currently scheduled to lift of in the future... some time. Maybe Quarter 3 of this year?
And finally, some awesome news for you Roku owners out there. Spacevidcast now has our own channel! Thanks in no small part, and by no small part I mean entirely to Todd the Moon... er... Pete Riesett. Now if you want to watch Spacevidcast on your HDTV at home, you can with ease. Just pick up this $99 box and hook it up to your broadband Internet connection and HDTV. Install the FREE Spacevidcast channel and you can watch our live channel, NASA TV live, our all new live feed from the International Space Station, Space Pods and Archived live shows right from the comfort of your living room. This thing is beyond awesome. Nearly 3,500 space tweeps have already installed the Spacevidcast channel in the first week! If you don't already have a Roku box, go pick one up using the link on the screen. Not only can you get your Spacevidcast fix, but you can also get Netflix streaming, Amazon On-Demand and a slew of other awesome channels. Please don't forget to rate our channel while you're at it. We're currently only accepting a 5 star rating though :) Oh, for you Roku standard definition owners, fret not we're working on a way for you to get our channel too. Right now we're HD only.
More Spacevidcast upgrades are on the way soon. Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to know, or better yet, grab a copy of Spacevidcast epic to get all the juicy behind the scenes type stuff!Beautiful images, beautiful launches and awesome new features on your SpacePod for... more
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Masten Space gives us a behind the scenes look at their new launch vehicle and talks about their qualifying run at the LLC Level 1 prize. We talk about saving the world one drop of water at a time. And we talk about the ZOMG LCROSS IS GOING TO DESTROY THE MOON AND ALL HUMANITY WILL FAIL!!!111!!! You know, or maybe not.Masten Space gives us a behind the scenes look at their new launch vehicle and talks... more
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NASA, along with just about everyone else down here on Earth, is looking to see if there is water on the Moon. And not just random bits of ice on the surface, but really big quantities of water that we can use, should humans ever have a Lunar colony.NASA, along with just about everyone else down here on Earth, is looking to see if... more
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Poor Pluto. First it gets kicked out of the planet club, now it's not even the coldest place in the solar system. Dark craters near the moon's south pole have snatched that title – which is good news for the prospects of finding water ice on Earth's companion.
The craters' towering rims block the sun from reaching their centres, like the long shadows cast by tall buildings at dusk. In this permanent darkness, they stay at a constant -240 °Celsius – more than 30 °C above absolute zero and 10 °C cooler than Pluto, which was measured at -230 °C in 2006.
"The lunar south pole is among the coldest parts of the solar system and may be in fact colder than what we expect from places like Pluto," NASA scientist Richard Vondrak said at a press conference on Thursday.
The cold temperature bodes well for the prospect of finding water ice deposits in the moon's shadowy pockets. Previous calculations had shown that water and other volatile gases would dissipate into space at temperatures above about -220 °C.
The measurements come from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which launched in June.
The satellite's temperature sensor, DIVINER, measures the amount of emitted and reflected radiation given off by the surface. LRO has a number of other instruments designed to map properties such as topography and neutron levels – another possible indicator of water.
In July, the satellite sent back pictures of the Apollo landing sites to commemorate the 40th anniversary of humans on the moon. On Thursday, LRO's primary mission began to collect data that could be used to plan a possible return to the moon.
The temperature finding raises hopes that NASA's other current lunar satellite mission, LCROSS, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, will find evidence of water when it crashes into a crater near the moon's south pole on 9 October.Poor Pluto. First it gets kicked out of the planet club, now it's not even the... more
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The US space agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has returned its first images since reaching the Moon on 23 June.The US space agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has returned... more
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Discovery-News.com: Before NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter heads to the moon in February, Discovery Channel's Dave Mosher learns more about the instruments that will scout the lunar surface. Jorge Ribas produces.Discovery-News.com: Before NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter heads to the moon... more
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NASA is inviting citizens of Earth to add their name to an electronic roll-call destined to travel to the Moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) later this year. All you have to do is enter your details, and they'll be put into a database for later storage on a chip aboard the LRO.
http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/NASA is inviting citizens of Earth to add their name to an electronic roll-call... more
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