Launch of the TEXUS-51 sounding rocket that included plasmid DNA on the exterior of the rocket. A November 2014 study based on the flight suggests DNA could survive a suborbital spaceflight. Credit: Adrian Mettauer
So how ’bout those planetary protection agreements? Turns out that plasmid DNA — the kind that exists in bacterial cells — may be able to survive a rocket trip to space, based on research with an engineered version. And if life’s building blocks can get there, perhaps they can even go beyond. The International Space Station? Mars?
This information comes from a single peer-reviewed study based on a sounding rocket that went into suborbital space in March 2011. Called TEXUS-49, its payload included artificial plasmid DNA that had both a fluorescent marker and an antibiotic resistance gene.
Even in the 13-minute flight, temperatures on the rocket exterior soared to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit.) And remarkably, the DNA survived.
While we talk about Earth having carbon-based life forms, the coding parts of DNA are nucleotides – with a carbon content of zero. Credit: NASA (adapted image).
Not all of the DNA was working properly, though. Up to 35% of it had its “full biological function”, researchers stated, specifically in terms of helping bacteria with antibiotic resistance and encouraging the fluorescent marker to express itself in eukaryotic cells, the cell type found in animals and plants.
The next step, naturally, would be to test this theory with more flights, the authors suggest. But interestingly enough, DNA survival wasn’t even the intended goal of the original study, even though there are stories of simple life surviving for a time in space, such as spores on the exterior of the International Space Station shown in the image below.
Images of Bacillus pumilus SAFR-032 spores (seen in an electron micrograph) on aluminum before and after being exposed to space on an International Space Station experiment. Credit: P. Vaishampayan, et al./Astrobiology
“We were totally surprised. Originally, we designed this experiment as a technology test for biomarker stability during spaceflight and re-entry,” the authors wrote in a statement for PLOS.
“We never expected to recover so many intact and functional active DNA. But it is not only an issue from space to Earth, it is also an issue from Earth to space and to other planets: Our findings made us a little bit worried about the probability of contaminating spacecrafts, landers and landing sites with DNA from Earth.”
The moon appears above NASA's Orion EFT-1 spacecraft in the Kennedy Space Center area as its set to soar to space atop a Delta 4 Heavy Booster at Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida ahead of launch set for Dec. 4, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer - kenkremer.com
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – This week’s appearance of the Moon over the Kennedy Space Center marks the perfect backdrop heralding the start of NASA’s determined push to send Humans to Mars by the 2030s via the agency’s new Orion crew capsule set to soar to space on its maiden test flight in less than two days.
Orion is the first human rated vehicle that can carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit on voyages to deep space in more than 40 years.
Top managers from NASA, United Launch Alliance (ULA), and Lockheed Martin met on Tuesday, Dec. 2, and gave the “GO” to proceed toward launch after a thorough review of all systems related to the Orion capsule, rocket, and ground operation systems at the launch pad at the Launch Readiness Review (LRR), said Mark Geyer at a NASA media briefing on Dec. 2.
A new countdown display has been constructed in the place of the former analog countdown clock at the Press Site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Orion’s first launch slated for Dec. 4, 2014. The display is a modern, digital LED display akin to stadium monitors. It allows television images to be shown along with numbers. Note former shuttle launch pad 39A in the background above clock. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Orion is slated to lift off on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket on its inaugural test flight to space on the uncrewed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission at 7:05 a.m. EST on December 4, 2014, from Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
America’s astronauts flying aboard Orion will venture farther into deep space than ever before – beyond the Moon to Asteroids, Mars, and other destinations in our Solar System starting around 2020 or 2021 on Orion’s first crewed flight atop NASA’s new monster rocket – the SLS – concurrently under development.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden officially unveils world’s largest welder to start construction of core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at NASA Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans, on Sept. 12, 2014. SLS will be the world’s most powerful rocket ever built. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
The current weather forecast states the launch is 60 percent “GO” for favorable weather condition at the scheduled liftoff time of at 7:05 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2014.
The launch window extends for 2 hours and 39 minutes.
The two-orbit, four and a half hour Orion EFT-1 flight around Earth will lift the Orion spacecraft and its attached second stage to an orbital altitude of 3,600 miles, about 15 times higher than the International Space Station (ISS) – and farther than any human spacecraft has journeyed in 40 years.
EFT-1 will test the rocket, second stage, and jettison mechanisms, as well as avionics, attitude control, computers, and electronic systems inside the Orion spacecraft.
Orion atop Delta 4 Heavy Booster. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Then the spacecraft will carry out a high speed re-entry through the atmosphere at speeds approaching 20,000 mph and scorching temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit to test the heat shield, before splashing down for a parachute assisted landing in the Pacific Ocean.
NASA TV will provide several hours of live Orion EFT-1 launch coverage with the new countdown clock – starting at 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 4.
Orion’s move to Launch Complex-37. Credit: Mike Killian
Watch for Ken’s ongoing Orion coverage and he’ll be onsite at KSC in the days leading up to the historic launch on Dec. 4.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Orion and Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Ken Kremer
………….
Learn more about Orion, SpaceX, Antares, NASA missions, and more at Ken’s upcoming outreach events:
Dec 1-5: “Orion EFT-1, SpaceX CRS-5, Antares Orb-3 launch, Curiosity Explores Mars,” Kennedy Space Center Quality Inn, Titusville, FL, evenings
Side view shows trio of Common Booster Cores (CBCs) with RS-68 engines powering the Delta IV Heavy rocket resting horizontally in ULA’s HIF processing facility at Cape Canaveral that will launch NASA’s maiden Orion on the EFT-1 mission in December 2014 from Launch Complex 37. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Eta Carinae from Hubble's STIS instrument. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Wow! One of the most famous star explosions captured by the Hubble Space Telescope — several times — shows clear evidence of expansion in this new animation. You can see here the Homunculus Nebula getting bigger and bigger between 1995 and 2008, when Hubble took pictures of the Eta Carinae star system. More details from one of the animation authors below.
“I had the idea to check the Hubble image of Eta Carinae because I know this star rather well,” wrote Philippe Henarejos, one of the authors of the animation, in an e-mail to Universe Today. Henarejos has written several times about the star for the magazine he edits, Ciel et espace (Sky and Space) and also published a French-language book on star histories.
“Telling this story, I realized that astronomers knew for a long time that the Homunculus Nebula was expanding. Also, I knew that the HST had taken many photos of this object since 1995. So I thought that thanks to the very high resolution of the HST images, it could be possible to see the expansion.”
Eta Carinae from Hubble’s STIS instrument. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Along with colleague Jean-Luc Dauvergne, Henarejos tracked down two images in the archives and searched for a fixed object that wouldn’t be moving as the expansion occurred, which they decided would be two stars close to the border of the field of view. Then Dauvergne found a third image that clearly showed the expansion happening.
The two gentlemen then verified their findings with astronomer John Martin from the University of Illinois, who maintains a page on Eta Carinae. “He told me that the expansion is real,” Henarejos said.
Eta Carinae mysteriously brightened about 170 years ago, becoming the second-most luminous object in Earth’s night sky. Then it faded 150 years ago. Astronomers are still examining the system to see what might have caused this.
Philae landed nearly vertically on its side with one leg up in outer space. Here we see it in relation to the panoramic photos taken with the CIVA cameras. Credit: ESA
No, scientists haven’t found Philae yet. But as they churn through the scientific data on the comet lander, more information is emerging about the crazy landing last month that included three touchdowns and an incredible two hours of drifting before Philae came to rest in a relatively shady spot on the surface.
Among the latest: the tumbling spacecraft “collided with a surface feature” shortly after its first landing, perhaps grazing a crater rim with one of its legs. This information comes from an instrument called ROMAP (Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor) that monitors magnetic fields. The instrument is now being used to track down the spacecraft.
ROMAP’s usual role is to look at the comet’s magnetic field as it interacts with the solar wind, but the challenge is the orbiter (Rosetta) and lander both create tiny ones of their own due to the magnetic circuitry. Usually this data is removed to see what the comet’s environment is like. But during the landing, ROMAP was used to track Philae’s descent.
Four images of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko taken on Nov. 30, 2014 by the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
Philae was supposed to fire harpoons to secure itself to the surface when it touched down at 3:34 p.m. UTC (10:34 a.m. EST) Nov. 12, but the mechanism failed. ROMAP’s data then shows the spin rate increasing, with the lander turning at one rotation every 13 seconds.
The grazing collision happened at 4:20 pm. UTC (11:20 a.m. EST), making the rotation decrease to once every 24 seconds. Then the final two touchdowns happened around 5:25 p.m. UTC (12:25 p.m. EST) and 5:31 p.m. UTC (12:31 p.m. EST). Controllers hope they can figure out exactly where Philae arrived once they look at data from ROMAP, CONSERT and other instruments on the lander.
Philae is now hibernating because there isn’t enough sunlight in its landing spot to recharge its battery through the solar panels. Rosetta, meanwhile, continues orbiting 67P and sending back pictures of the comet as it draws closer to the Sun, including the image you see further up in this blog post, released today (Dec. 2) a few days after it was taken in space.
A 3-D model of 6 Hebe based on its light curve. The asteroid is about 120 miles in diameter and orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Credit: Charles University_Josef Durech_Vojtech Sidorin
In the reeds that line the banks of the celestial river Eridanus, you’ll find Hebe on the prowl this month. Discovered in 1847 by German amateur astronomer Karl Ludwig Hencke , the asteroid may hold the key to the origin of the H-chondrites, a large class of metal-rich stony meteorites found in numerous amateur and professional collections around the world. You can now see this interesting minor planet with nothing more than a pair of binoculars or small telescope.
Judging by his demeanor, it might have been unwise to tell Karl Hencke he was wasting his time looking for asteroids.
The first four asteroids – Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta – were discovered in quick succession from 1801 to 1807. Then nothing turned up for years. Most astronomers wrongly assumed all the asteroids had been found and moved on to other projects like measuring the orbits of double stars and determining stellar parallaxes. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Hencke, who worked as a postmaster during the day, doggedly persisted in sieving the stars for new asteroids in his free time at night. His systematic search began in 1830. Fifteen years and hundreds of cold nights at the eyepiece later he turned up 5 Astrae (asteroid no. 5) on Dec. 8, 1845, and 6 Hebe on July 1, 1847.
Hebe orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter with an average distance from the Sun of 225 million miles. It spins on its axis once every 7.3 hours. Credit: Wikipedia
Energized by the finds, astronomers returned to their telescopes with renewed gusto to join in the hunt once again. The rest is history. As of November 2014 there are 415,688 numbered asteroids and a nearly equal number of unnumbered discoveries. Fittingly, asteroid 2005 Hencke honors the man who kept the fire burning.
You’ll find Hebe trucking along in Eridanus this month just north of Delta (left) and Epsilon Eridani, a pair of +3.5 magnitude stars. This map shows stars to magnitude +9.5 with Hebe’s position marked every 5 nights. Click to enlarge. Source: Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software
At 120 miles (190 km) across, Hebe is one of the bigger asteroids (officially 33rd in size in the main belt) and orbits the Sun once every 3.8 years. It will be our guest this final month of the year shining at magnitude +8.2 in early December, +8.5 by mid-month and +8.9 when you don your party hat on New Year’s Eve. All the while, Hebe will loop across the barrens of Eridanus west of Orion. Use the maps here to help track it down. I’ve included a detailed color map above, but also created a “black stars on white” version for those that find reverse charts easier to use.
Use this wide view of the sky to get oriented before zeroing in with the more detailed map above. Hebe lies just a few degrees north of Delta and Epsilon Eridani for much of December. Best viewing time is from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. local time early in the month. Source: Stellarium
In more recent times, Hebe’s story takes an interesting turn. Through a study of its gravitational nudges on other asteroids, astronomers discovered that Hebe is a very compact, rocky object, not a loosey-goosey pile of rubble like some asteroids. Its high density provides strong evidence for a composition of both rock and iron. Scientists can determine the approximate composition of an asteroid’s surface by studying its reflectance spectrum, or what colors or wavelengths are reflected back from the object after a portion is absorbed by its surface. They use infrared light because different minerals absorb different wavelengths of infrared light. That data is compared to infrared absorptions from rocks and meteorites found on Earth. Turns out, our friend Hebe’s spectrum is a good match to two classes of meteorites – the H-chondrites, which comprise 40% of known meteorites – and the rarer IIE silicated iron meteorites.
Did this slice of meteorite come from Hebe? A 12.9-gram specimen of NWA 2710, an H5 stony chondrite, sparkles in the light. The shiny flecks are iron-nickel metal set in a stony matrix. Credit: Bob King
Because Hebe orbits close to an unstable zone in the asteroid belt, any impacts it suffers are soon perturbed by Jupiter’s gravity and launched into trajectories than can include the Earth. When you spot Hebe in your binoculars the next clear night, you might just be seeing where many of the more common space rocks in our collections originated.
A beautiful image of Sasturns tiny moon Daphnis, but where is all the color?
If NASA is so advanced, why are their pictures in black and white?
It’s a question that I’ve heard, in one form or another, for almost as long as I’ve been talking with the public about space. And, to be fair, it’s not a terrible inquiry. After all, the smartphone in my pocket can shoot something like ten high-resolution color images every second. It can automatically stitch them into a panorama, correct their color, and adjust their sharpness. All that for just a few hundred bucks, so why can’t our billion-dollar robots do the same?
The answer, it turns out, brings us to the intersection of science and the laws of nature. Let’s take a peek into what it takes to make a great space image…
Perhaps the one thing that people most underestimate about space exploration is the time it takes to execute a mission. Take Cassini, for example. It arrived at Saturn back in 2004 for a planned four-year mission. The journey to Saturn, however, is about seven years, meaning that the spacecraft launched way back in 1997. And planning for it? Instrument designs were being developed in the mid-1980s! So, when you next see an astonishing image of Titan or the rings here at Universe Today, remember that the camera taking those shots is using technology that’s almost 30 years old. That’s pretty amazing, if you ask me.
But even back in the 1980s, the technology to create color cameras had been developed. Mission designers simply choose not to use it, and they had a couple of great reasons for making that decision.
Perhaps the most practical reason is that color cameras simply don’t collect as much light. Each “pixel” on your smartphone sensor is really made up of four individual detectors: one red, one blue, two green (human eyes are more sensitive to green!). The camera’s software combines the values of those detectors into the final color value for a given pixel. But, what happens when a green photon hits a red detector? Nothing, and therein lies the problem. Color sensors only collect a fraction of the incoming light; the rest is simply lost information. That’s fine here on Earth, where light is more or less spewing everywhere at all times. But, the intensity of light follows one of those pesky inverse-square laws in physics, meaning that doubling your distance from a light source results in it looking only a quarter as bright.
That means that spacecraft orbiting Jupiter, which is about five times farther from the Sun than is the Earth, see only four percent as much light as we do. And Cassini at Saturn sees the Sun as one hundred times fainter than you or I. To make a good, clear image, space cameras need to make use of all the little light available to them, which means making do without those fancy color pixels.
A mosaic of images through different filters on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Image credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center
The darkness of the solar system isn’t the only reason to avoid using a color camera. To the astronomer, light is everything. It’s essentially our only tool for understanding vast tracts of the Universe and so we must treat it carefully and glean from it every possible scrap of information. A red-blue-green color scheme like the one used in most cameras today is a blunt tool, splitting light up into just those three categories. What astronomers want is a scalpel, capable of discerning just how red, green, or blue the light is. But we can’t build a camera that has red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet pixels – that would do even worse in low light!
Instead, we use filters to test for light of very particular colors that are of interest scientifically. Some colors are so important that astronomers have given them particular names; H-alpha, for example, is a brilliant hue of red that marks the location of hydrogen throughout the galaxy. By placing an H-alpha filter in front of the camera, we can see exactly where hydrogen is located in the image – useful! With filters, we can really pack in the colors. The Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, for example, carries with it 38 different filters for a vast array of tasks. But each image taken still looks grayscale, since we only have one bit of color information.
At this point, you’re probably saying to yourself “but, but, I KNOW I have seen color images from Hubble before!” In fact, you’ve probably never seen a grayscale Hubble image, so what’s up? It all comes from what’s called post-processing. Just like a color camera can combine color information from three detectors to make the image look true-to-life, astronomers can take three (or more!) images through different filters and combine them later to make a color picture. There are two main approaches to doing this, known colloquially as “true color” and “false color.”
A “true color” image of the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa as seen by the Galileo spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
True color images strive to work just like your smartphone camera. The spacecraft captures images through filters which span the visible spectrum, so that, when combined, the result is similar to what you’d see with your own eyes. The recently released Galileo image of Europa is a gorgeous example of this.
Our eyes would never see the Crab Nebula as this Hubble image shows it. Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)
False color images aren’t limited by what our human eyes can see. They assign different colors to different features within an image. Take this famous image of the Crab Nebula, for instance. The red in the image traces oxygen atoms that have had electrons stripped away. Blue traces normal oxygen and green indicates sulfur. The result is a gorgeous image, but not one that we could ever hope to see for ourselves.
So, if we can make color images, why don’t we always? Again, the laws of physics step in to spoil the fun. For one, things in space are constantly moving, usually really, really quickly. Perhaps you saw the first color image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko released recently. It’s kind of blurry, isn’t it? That’s because both the Rosetta spacecraft and the comet moved in the time it took to capture the three separate images. When combined, they don’t line up perfectly and the image blurs. Not great!
The first color image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Image credit: ESA/Rosetta
But it’s the inverse-square law that is the ultimate challenge here. Radio waves, as a form of light, also rapidly become weaker with distance. When it takes 90 minutes to send back a single HiRISE image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, every shot counts and spending three on the same target doesn’t always make sense.
Finally, images, even color ones, are only one piece of the space exploration puzzle. Other observations, from measuring the velocity of dust grains to the composition of gases, are no less important to understanding the mysteries of nature. So, next time you see an eye-opening image, don’t mind that it’s in shades of gray. Just imagine everything else that lack of color is letting us learn.
A montage of images taken of Jupiter and its moon Io (foreground) by the New Horizons mission in 2007. Jupiter is shown in infrared wavelengths while Io is close to true-color. On top of Io is an eruption from the volcano Tvashtar. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
New Horizons, you gotta wake up this weekend. There’s so much work ahead of you when you reach Pluto next year! The spacecraft has been sleeping quietly for weeks in its last great hibernation before the dwarf planet close encounter in July. On Saturday (Dec. 6), the NASA craft will open its eyes and begin preparations for that flyby.
How cool will those closeups of Pluto and its moons look? A hint comes from a swing New Horizons took by Jupiter in 2007 en route. It caught a huge volcanic plume erupting off of the moon Io, picked up new details in Jupiter’s atmosphere and gave scientists a close-up of a mysterious “Little Red Spot.” Get a taste of the fun seven years ago in the gallery below.
An eruption from the Tvashtar volcano on Io, Jupiter’s moon, in several different wavelength images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2007. The left image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) shows lava glowing in the night. At top right, the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) spotted sulfur and sulfor dioxide deposits on the sunny side of Io. The remaining image from the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) shows volcanic hotspots on Io’s surface. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research InstituteJupiter’s “Little Red Spot” seen by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2007. The spot turned red in 2005 for reasons scientists were then unsure of, but speculated it could be due to stuff from inside the atmosphere being stirred up by a storm surge. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research InstituteA “family portrait” of the four Galilean satellites around Jupiter taken by the New Horizons spacecraft and released in 2007. From left, the montage includes Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research InstituteA composite of Jupiter’s bands (and atmospheric structures) taken in several images by the New Horizons Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera, showing differences due to sunlight and wind. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research InstituteIn February and March 2007, a huge plume erupted from the Tvashtar volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io. The image sequence taken by New Horizons showed the largest such explosion then viewed by a spacecraft — even accounting for the Galileo spacecraft that examined Io between 1996 and 2001. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research InstituteThe New Horizons flyby of Io in 2007 (right) revealed a changing feature on the surface of the Jupiter moon since Galileo’s image of 1999 (left.) Inside the circle, a new volcanic eruption spewed material; other pictures showed this region was still active. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Screenshot of ground testing of the Orion spacecrafts "glass cockpit." Credit: NASA/YouTube (screenshot)
If it’s good enough for a Boeing 787, it’s gotta be good enough for space, right? NASA’s Orion spacecraft — poised for its first uncrewed flight on Thursday (Dec. 4) — will eventually include a “glass cockpit” that will make it easier for astronauts to step across the Solar System, based on the passenger jet avionics.
Why go for glass over switches? The huge benefit is weight (which means less fuel expended to heft the spacecraft), according to the NASA video above.
“One big benefit is the weight savings because you don’t need to have a physical switch,” said astronaut Lee Morin, who was involved in the design, in the video. “With a physical switch, not only is there the weight of the switch, but you also have the weight of the wire to the switch, and you have to have the weight of the circuity that takes that wire and feeds it into the vehicle computers.”
This means that the new spacecraft will sport only 60 physical switches for the astronauts to control (the video did not specify what they would do), which could also be simpler in terms of usability.
The cockpit, however, is not quite ready for prime-time. Although Exploration Test Flight-1 (ETF-1) will have most of the Orion systems included in the crew portion, the glass cockpit will not be among them, according to the flight’s press kit. “The only crew module systems that will not fly on this vehicle are the environmental control and life support system; and the crew support systems such as displays, seats and crew-operable hatches,” it reads.
But there will be more testing ahead. Orion is slated to run its next flight in about 2017 or 2018, which could include a more complete spacecraft at that time. Meanwhile, people are already starting to gather for the test flight, which will see the deepest space exploration by a crew capsule since the Apollo era. Orion will roar into space and return for a high-speed re-entry to make sure that heat shield works when NASA sticks people inside.
NASA’s new countdown clock was powered up at the Press Site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first time on Dec. 1, 2014 for use with Orion’s first launch on Dec. 4, 2014. Note former shuttle launch pad 39A in the background above clock. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER – Just in the nick of time, NASA powered up its new countdown clock at the Press Site to tick down towards blastoff of the first launch of the agency’s new Orion crew capsule on Dec. 4 that will carry a new generation of explorers to exciting new destinations further into deep space than ever before.
Without any fanfare, NASA premiered the new digital clock today, Monday, Dec. 1, to replace the world famous analog clock – seen by countless billions across the globe – that was recently retired and detailed in my story – here.
Check out and compare the new and old countdown clocks in my exclusive photos herein.
“We were in a race against time to remove the old clock and replace it with the new clock over the Thanksgiving holiday period,” said NASA Kennedy Space Center spokesman George Diller in an exclusive interview with Universe Today on Monday.
“The plan was to have it ready in time for the first launch of Orion on Dec. 4,” Diller told me.
A new countdown display has been constructed in the place of the former analog countdown clock at the Press Site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Orion’s first launch. The display is a modern, digital LED display akin to stadium monitors. It allows television images to be shown along with numbers. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
A team was working during the holiday.
Why replace the old clock?
“It was getting harder and harder to find the spare parts needed to fix the clock”.
“The original clock was designed in the 1960s”, Diller explained. It has been counting down launches, both manned and unmanned, for more than four decades.
“The clock has been in use since the Apollo 12 moon landing mission in November 1969.”
NASA’s 135th, and final, shuttle mission takes flight on July 8, 2011, at 11:29 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida bound for the ISS and the high frontier with Chris Ferguson as Space Shuttle Commander. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
It was used continuously throughout the remaining Apollo launches and then for all 135 shuttle launches until the final shuttle mission STS-135 blastoff in July 2011. Since then it has been used exclusively on a plethora of unmanned NASA science launches and resupply missions to the International Space Station.
The old countdown clock was last used in September 2014 during the SpaceX CRS-4 launch to the ISS, which I attended along with the STS-135 launch.
The clock and adjacent US flag are officially called “The Press Site: Clock and Flag Pole” and were listed in the National Register of Historic Places on Jan. 21, 2000.
In the past few days workers dismantled and hauled off the old clock and installed the new one in place.
But the original base was left in place. The new clock is about the same length as the historic one, with a screen nearly 26 feet wide by 7 feet high.
While not true high-definition, the video resolution will be 1280 x 360.The new countdown clock sports a widescreen capability utilizing the latest breakthroughs in outdoor LED display technology, says NASA.
Space Shuttle Endeavour blasts off on her 25th, and final, mission from Pad 39 A on May 16, 2011, at 8:56 a.m. View from the world famous countdown clock at T-Plus 5 Seconds. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
The display can provide images from multiple sources, as well as the countdown launch time. It was cool to see the new clock in action today.
As currently envisaged, the historic Countdown Clock was moved to the nearby Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (KSCVC).
It will be placed on permanent display for the public to see for the first time at the KSCVC main entrance sometime early next year, Diller explained.
The new countdown clock in contact view with the VAB, Launch Control Center (LCC), US Flag, and SLS Mobile Launcher at the Press Site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will be used for the first time with Orion’s first launch on Dec. 4, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
NASA TV will provide several hours of live Orion EFT-1 launch coverage with the new countdown clock – starting at 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 4.
Watch for Ken’s ongoing Orion coverage and he’ll be onsite at KSC in the days leading up to the historic launch on Dec. 4.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Orion and Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Ken Kremer
………….
Learn more about Orion, SpaceX, Antares, NASA missions and more at Ken’s upcoming outreach events:
Dec 1-5: “Orion EFT-1, SpaceX CRS-5, Antares Orb-3 launch, Curiosity Explores Mars,” Kennedy Space Center Quality Inn, Titusville, FL, evenings
John Dalton, the father of atomic theory, by Charles Turner. Credit: Wikipedia
Atomic theory – that is, the belief that all matter is composed of tiny, indivisible elements – has very deep roots. Initially, the theory appeared in thousands of years ago in Greek and Indian texts as a philosophical idea. However, it was not embraced scientifically until the 19th century, when an evidence-based approach began to reveal what the atomic model looked like.
It was at this time that John Dalton, an English chemist, meteorologist and physicist, began a series of experiments which would culminate in him proposing the theory of atomic compositions – which thereafter would be known as Dalton’s Atomic Theory – that would become one of the cornerstones of modern physics and chemistry.
