Here are some Apollo 13 pictures. You can make any of these pictures into your computer desktop background. Just click on an image to enlarge it, and then right-click and choose “Set as Desktop Background.
Here’s a photo of the Apollo 13 mission launching from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. It launched on April 11, 1970, just a few days before its accident in space, which has been turned into a popular movie.
This is an image of the Apollo 13 re-entry capsule returning to Earth, slowed by three large parachutes. Because of the accident, Apollo 13 kept its lunar lander attached to the Command Module for the entire trip around the Moon and back to Earth. They jettisoned it at the last minute just before re-entering the atmosphere.
Here’s a photo of the Apollo 13 capsule floating on the ocean after its landing. You can see command module pilot John L. Swigert Jr being lifted up by a helicopter.
And here’s a photo of Commander Jim Lovell being lifted up into the helicopter. He was the last of the three astronauts lifted up to safety after their capsule landed in the ocean.
This is an image of the Apollo 13 command module, which was normally used by the astronauts through the mission. Their command module had to be powered down to save power so they had to use the service module after the accident.
We’ve written many articles about Apollo 13 for Universe Today. Here’s an article about what really happened on Apollo 13, and here’s an article about the Apollo 13 launch.
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for the weekend? Then let’s spend it “stellar” as we take a look at a great series of open galactic star clusters. Gathering a few photons will enrich both the spirit and the mind! If you’re ready for some history, science and challenges, then follow me…
March 5, 2010 – This date celebrates the 1512 birth of Gerardus Mercator. Mercator was the cartographer who created the Mercator map projection, the series of parallels and meridians drawn as straight lines to allow an accurate ratio of latitude to longitude. Mercator also designed the first celestial globe in 1551.
Tonight let’s take in a galactic star cluster! Find the area easily by aiming binoculars about halfway between Alpha Orionis and Gamma Geminorum (RA 06 13 42 Dec +12 48 06). Look for a faint pair of stars known as K Orionis, but don’t confuse them with slightly brighter Xi and Nu. Concentrate on the northernmost of the K pair, and you’ll pick up a slight condensation of faint stars— NGC 2194. While this Herschel ‘‘400’’ target is sufficiently bright to see in small optics, its true beauty shines in larger telescopes. This rich, young concentration of stars is over 3,700 light-years away and is less than 9,000 years old. Photometric studies of this neophyte cluster show it to be metal-poor for its age, but NGC 2194 is definitely a very pleasing sprinkling of stars to enjoy on a winter’s night!
Are you ready for an open cluster that’s suited for all optics? Then let’s take on NGC2287. Located about two finger-widths south of Alpha Canis Majoris (RA 06 46 00 Dec +20 46 00), only an open cluster this bright could stand up against brilliant Sirius. From a dark-sky location, your unaided eye can even spot this magnitude 4.5 star vault as a hazy patch. Aristotle saw it as early as 325 BC! Officially discovered by Hodierna, we know it best by the designation Messier Object 41.
Even from 2,300 light-years away, the cluster’s brightest star, an orange giant, stands out clearly from the stellar nest. With large aperture, you’ll notice other K-type stars, all very similar to Sol. Although small scopes and binoculars won’t reveal too much color, you might pick up on the blue signature of young, hot stars. NGC 2287 could be anywhere from 190 to 240 million years old, but its stars shine as brightly now as they did in Aristotle’s day!
March 6, 2010 – If you see sunshine today, then celebrate the 1787 birth on this date of Joseph Fraunhofer—a trailblazer in modern astronomy. His field? Spectroscopy. Fraunhofer developed scientific instruments and specialized in the area of applied optics. While designing the achromatic objective lens for a telescope, he saw the spectrum of sunlight as it passed through a thin slit and the dark emission lines. Fraunhofer recognized that they could be used as wavelength standards, so he began measuring, labeling the most prominent with the letters still used today. His skill in optics, mathematics, and physics led Fraunhofer to design and build the very first diffraction grating. You’ve probably seen these little rainbows hundreds of times in your life without even realizing what they are. Would you like to create your own grating? Take a piece of ordinary clear cellophane (a bit of clean food wrapping is fine) and scratch it lightly a few times in one direction only with a piece of sandpaper. Hold it adjacent to a bright light source and tilt it until you see hundreds of hair-fine lines of color. Yes, it’s crude. . . but it works! Did Fraunhofer’s telescope designs also succeed? Of course! His achromatic objective lens is still used in modern telescopes.
Tonight journey south of Orion to Lepus and its brightest star—Alpha. Named Arneb, this double star resides about 900 light-years away. Its wide separation of 35.500 means it’s probably not a true physical pair, but the 11th magnitude disparate companion is a nice challenge. For binoculars and small scopes, hop due east of Alpha about a finger-width for brilliant multiple-star system and open cluster NGC2017. The gravitationally bound stars in this small open cluster are a well-studied source of radio and infrared emission. NGC2017 produces a dense wind from a thin HII region hidden within it, which may come from a loose distribution of gas and dust. Power up, and the primary colorful members begin to split into disparate pairs as the combination of aperture and magnification increases resolution. It’s a much underrated jewel box!
March 7, 2010 – Today we celebrate two notable births. The year 1837 is Henry Draper’s, first to photograph the stellar spectrum; and 1792 is the year Sir William Herschel’s only child—John—was born. John Herschel began his astronomical career in 1816 when he built his first telescope. His path led him to eventual British knighthood for furthering his father’s work, and to South Africa to complete his father’s survey by cataloging the stars, nebulae, and other objects of the southern skies. In his own words, ‘‘He that on such quest would go must know not fear or failing.’’ John returned to England in 1838, published his work, fathered 12 children, named the moons of Saturn and Uranus, and expanded the field of photography. He was a prodigious author, and you’ll even find examples of his handiwork in the Encyclopedia Britannica!
Tonight let’s honor J. Herschel with a very beautiful open star cluster. Begin with Sirius and the southern upside down Y formation of Canis Major, whose crux is Delta. Hop northeast to Tau for open cluster NGC 2362 (RA 07 18 36 Dec 24 59 00). In binoculars, Caldwell 64 appears as two stars—Tau and the variable UW. At minor magnification, Tau shows a slight nebulosity, the many unresolved stars surrounding it. Now power up with a telescope and behold the ‘‘ Mexican Jumping Star!’’ This rich, 4,600 light-years distant gathering contains about 40 members and is one of the youngest of known star clusters. Many resolvable stars haven’t yet reached the main sequence!
Still pulling together, the cluster is estimated to be less than a million years old. The central star—Tau—is a true member and one of the most intrinsically luminous stars known. This group may last as long as the Pleiades but will pull apart long before reaching the Hyades’’ age. Tau’s immense stellar winds will blow away any accretion around the smaller stars. Magnify as much as skies will allow. As individual stars begin to resolve in and out around its bright central member, you can see how it got its nickname!
Now head for the eastern star, Eta Canis Majoris. Aim your binoculars about one field further south. Difficult for northern observers, this collection is visible unaided in the Southern Hemisphere. Collinder 140 (RA 07 23 18 Dec 32 04 00) is around magnitude 3.5 and is a rich open cluster. Located around 1,000 light-years away, and estimated to be 22 million years old, even small optics will enjoy this large, jewel-like collection of stars, which includes the double Dunlop 47 among its many binary systems. Studied for its unusual patterns of stellar evolution, Collinder 140 is worth some of your study time as well!
Until next week? Keep rockin’ the night away….
This week’s awesome cluster images are from the Palomar Sky Survey, Courtesy of Caltech. Thank you so much!
Hi, this is Nancy Atkinson from Universe Today. Right now I’m at Kennedy Space Center, and I’ve had the opportunity to see a couple of launches and cover other events that normally, I’d be back home watching on NASA TV. Since NASA TV is part of my daily diet of space media, I was very interested to see the newsroom, step in the auditorium where all the press conferences are held, and also talk with some of the people who work at NASA TV at Kennedy Space Center, or KSC TV as they call it, to find out about the work that they do, and also what it’s like to provide some of the most unique and exciting coverage anywhere on — and off — the planet. I chatted with producers, directors, technicians and other people who work behind the scenes, plus I also had the good fortune to talk with one of the voices of NASA TV, George Diller.
Allie Lee, Producer. Allie Lee, Producer for KSC TV/NASA TV. Image: Nancy Atkinson
Nancy: I’m now here with Allie Lee and you are a producer for NASA TV?
Allie: I am, for Kennedy Space Center Television.
Nancy: What are some of the things you get to do. Or have to do?
Allie: I’m in charge or preparing the launch countdown show prior to launch and all the press conferences and media briefings that we do leading up to launch. But the most exciting thing that I get to do is work with the launch commentator, which a lot of times is George Diller, and work with him about what elements we’re going to put in the show, what things do we need to show on NASA TV, and I get to sit in the control room with all the fabulous employees that we have and watch the astronauts and the space shuttle get ready to launch.
Nancy: How long have you been here?
Allie: I’ve been here five years.
Nancy: Any memorable moments or times, or launches that you have been a part of?
Allie: I think the last launch was pretty special (STS-130). It happens to be the first one I got to do by myself as a producer. It was a fun launch, a beautiful launch in the evening. It was just wonderful to see the astronauts come out and get loaded up into the shuttle and wait for it and hear that countdown.
I would also say that another memorable flight would be STS-114, the return to flight. That was my first launch being here, and I happened to be pregnant with my little boy, so that was a nice launch.
Nancy: What are some of the challenges? Do you have to worry about timing and how you get everybody in and all the shots you want?
Allie: You do. There is a lot of tricks with it. As the producer you have to work very closely with the director who works closely with the field cameramen and the camera operators. You have to follow the astronauts schedule very closely and make sure that when a special milestone happens that the NASA TV commentator knows that it is happening, and that the director and the photographers all have that shot up on the TV so that everyone can see it and the commentator can talk about it.
You also have to be listening to the nets, to the loops and you get to listen all the people in the firing room discussing the launch. You have to listen for weather problems, weather issues. You have to listen for things that are going well, things that are not going well so that you can advise the NASA TV commentator so that he or she is preparing so they can give notice to the public, should they need to. So those are the things that are the challenges.
Working as a producer at Kennedy Space Center is a unique job, in that it is the only job like it in the world. So it is really special to me. It’s special to the whole team, but it is great to be part of this team.
Nancy: So, as you see the shuttle program coming to the end, does it…
Allie: It’s really sad. It’s really sad because we enjoy it so much and it is so beautiful. It’s going to be sad to see it go. I get to produce rocket launches, too, and those are wonderful. I’m excited that I get to be the producer for the last shuttle, I can tell you that.
Nancy: Thank you very much!
Dimitri Gerondidakis, Director.
Dimitri Gerondidakis in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC. Image: Nancy Atkinson
Nancy: And now I’m with Dimitri Gerondidakis. And you are one of the directors for NASA TV?
Dimitri: Yes.
Nancy: Can you me about a typical day for you, or the kinds of things you get to do?
Dimitri: Well, are you talking launch day?
Nancy: Launch day, that would be good!
Dimitri: OK, because every other day I’m just one of the troops and go out and get video and stills of different processing. But on launch day I’m lucky enough to get to direct the NASA TV launch coverage. Directing a shuttle launch is a lot different than directing news or sports or anything like that because with the shuttle launch there are actually required shots at certain times, for the paperwork for the engineers. There is a lot of timing out – at this time we need to show the engine and show the sparklers lighting the main engines. We need to stay with that shot until, what they call the mach diamonds form, coming out of the engines.
It’s not the most creative TV directing in the world, but it is no doubt exciting. The adrenaline really starts pumping. The control room at NASA TV at Kennedy Space Center. Image: Nancy Atkinson
Nancy: So, you’re not only getting shots not only for us watching NASA TV, but for the engineers as well?
Dimitri: Right. I believe what I learned is that we were a news feed, so there are no dissolves; its straight cuts and stuff like that. And during the polls, we want to show the launch director polling his team. Whenever there are astronauts and we can see them, it is a required shot, like ingressing. If you watch the coverage you’ll notice that once we see astronauts we don’t get off of astronauts until they are no longer visible, like when they pull those cameras out of the crew cabin.
There’s room for some creativity, don’t get me wrong. I mostly rely on the awesome cameramen we have here that sometimes get to show their “artsy” side. They do a great job of it. Praise goes to them really. I just pick the shots I like!
Nancy: Well, I think it is always interesting to watch the launches for the variety of things you do get to see. You get to see behind the scenes – the astronauts going into the vehicle. That’s very interesting.
Dimitri: Oh yeah, that’s always a fun part of the show. There’s the part when we go into the Operations and Checkout building and we see them all suiting up and they are waving and this and that. And it’s anxious wait for us because we are waiting for them to pop out into that hallway. So while you’re trying to put on a decently entertaining good show/news feed, whatever you want to call it, you have your one eye on that hallway camera, because as soon as they come out…
Nancy: It’s one thing you don’t want to miss!
Dimitri: It’s an exciting part of the show. If the show were condensed down to 10 minutes you would probably start from there, the astronauts getting on, and coming out of the 9 minute hold.
Nancy: Right. For landing, is it kind of a waiting game like it is for the rest of us, you just have to wait and see when it is going to happen?
Dimitri: And there’s a little competition between the guys out there on the cameras who can see it first and get the shot. It’s funny, because typically they land from the north to the south, unless winds are… this is my opinion, I’m not sure if this is fact or not, but it seems to be the majority of the landings here. Well, we’re all rooting for a south to north because we have a camera on the VAB roof and you’ll see when it lands from south to north, we pullout with this big, beautiful shot with Titusville in the background, you got the rivers, the lagoons, and here’s the shuttle dropping in like a brick, almost. It just makes for a really cool shot. So there’s some friendly competition out there.
Nancy: So, coming up we have a night landing. I’m assuming that makes it a little bit harder?
Dimitri: Yeah, we don’t have our long range tracker, we have an infrared tracker which picks up a little heat signature. The first thing you see on the screen is this little white dot, and you’re going, is that it? Is that it? And finally it will start to take the shape of the shuttle and they’ll start tracking it and its pretty much infrared, which is not the prettiest picture in the world. Until I get that pilot’s point of view feed, and I’m not sure when I get it or why when I get it but you can see their point of view and the runway and the lights and then it becomes a little prettier, no doubt. Then it gets into the Xenon lights and it gets like daytime.
Nancy: Yeah, I bet! Any memorable moment that you’ve had in your time here? How long have you been with NASA?
Dimitri: I originally worked at NASA Headquarters and directed some shows there. I and a producer, my friend Tony, followed Sean O’Keefe around to different centers and did his NASA Update show. Came down here, I think it was five years ago. They were looking for someone to direct, and I asked the wife is she wanted to move to Florida and the kids loved it and so we did.
So the most memorable would have to be return to flight. The place was buzzing; it was my first. I kind of got thrown to the fire. I asked the bosses, can I watch someone else direct it first, because I have no idea what goes into it. “Nah, just get in there and do it!” So there was a lot of adrenalin and there were a lot of us new hires for return to flight, there were a lot of people here, the place was buzzing. It was probably the one I remember most.
Nancy: OK, thanks Dimitri!
Loren Mathre, Audio.
Loren Mathre at the audio control panel at NASA TV at Kennedy Space Center. Image: Nancy Atkinson
Nancy: And now I’m talking with…
Loren: Loren Mathre.
Nancy: And what do you do at NASA TV?
Loren: I work in the audio control room. We support NASA TV when it comes to any aspect of audio. For launches we put microphones out at the pad, we have one that’s maybe 100 feet from the orbiter itself and we pick up from the sparkler, so when you watch it on TV and you see the water dump and you hear that “whoooosh” and you hear the sparklers kick on, people just take it for granted that you hear that, but we have microphones out there. So we have one out there, we have one on the pad perimeter to pick it up as soon as it is launching. And then we put one on the beach, pointing straight up to get that low level rumbling you hear when the shuttle has launched.
Nancy: This was my first launch that I was here for, for Endeavour, and the thing that got me was the sound.
Loren: The sound is impressive!
Nancy: It engulfs you! So how do you – and I tried to record it and it just basically distorted everything, so what to you have to do to get good sound?
Loren: It is a fine mix. It is a different mix every launch depending on the weather, the temperature – sound travels at different levels, different speeds depending on what is in the atmosphere. The microphone we put out on the pad we’re only on that when the sparklers ignite on. Once the engines kick on you have to get off that immediately, or you have nothing but overdriven clipping noise. The pad perimeter mic, it overdrives immediately as well, but you have to ride that a little bit, so it’s a fine tuning of riding the fader and the trim pot until the microphone at the beach picks up the audio. Once the microphone at the beach picks up the audio, you’re pretty much good because the shuttle is so far away. That’s where you hear that low level crackling.
Nancy: How long have you worked here?
Loren: I’ve worked here in the TV department for 10 years. I used to be in the tech control, which is just systems, down in the industrial area. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that area – that’s where all the payloads are processed. But I was working down there for 10 years as well before I got laid off and re-called back up here. But when I was working 10 years up there I didn’t know of any of the operations up here. It’s funny how you get stuck in your own little world down there. So when I came up here it was a whole different aspect of the space program because we work hand in hand with the astronauts, you know, so you get to see them. And we handle all the press conferences, so you get to see the press conferences and you see the Administrator and Bill Gerstenmaier, all of them coming up, and you’re able to put a face and a personality to the people that are running the agency, and the astronauts themselves, so it’s a really good job.
Nancy: So, since it’s my first time here, it is my first time being at press conferences. So you’re always trying to get a shot at who is talking. How hard is that when you’ve got several people talking?
Loren: Press conferences are pretty easy, even when they are full houses. I don’t know if you were here when the NASA Administrator was here. That was a very big press conference. Normally we only have one mic handler out there, but we had two mic handlers just to handle questions from the media. It’s pretty easy, you just ride the levels. It’s nothing compared to a launch. Mixing launch audio is a tricky thing and when you get it just right you feel really good about it because not very often do you get it just right. There’s always something that afterwards you think, ‘oh, I could have gotten off that faster, I could have brought that other mic up faster.’ It’s just trial and error each time.
Nancy: And there is no do-overs.
Loren: There is no do-overs, right! A month later or so you get another shot at it. I have another audio control person out there. And we switch off launches. So when I mix a launch, he puts the mics out for me and send the signal back to me, and then when he mixes the launch, I do the same for him. So this is actually his launch, so I’m putting the microphones out for launch, and for landing – we put microphones on the runway for landings as well. Just things you take for granted that you see on TV – anything TV-wise, I always like to say, without audio KSC TV is just like a very expensive surveillance system. We add the extra to the launches and landings.
Nancy: I know! I watch NASA TV religiously and I know a lot of our listeners do to, so they will be very interested to hear about this kind of behind-the-scenes stuff.
Loren: Yeah, I went to my niece’s 5th grade class and talked about it, and you just take it for granted when you do it all the time. But I talked to my niece’s class earlier this year in January. Before me there was a police officer there and when I walked up the police officer was showing the kids his car. There was a karate instructor giving instructions on breaking boards. And here I am, I work at NASA TV, and I have a little boxful of astronaut pictures and other memorabilia, I thought, ‘This is going to be so bad.’ They loved it—the kids could not get enough about space! They had so many interesting questions for me – about a space elevator and living on the moon – these 5th graders were really interested and wanted to know more. They said I was the best – they had me signing autographs afterwards! I said, all I do is mix sound out there, but they just loved it. There is a lot of interest in the space program.
Maggie Persinger, Public Affairs/Multimedia Maggie Persinger, with QinetiQ, who works at Kennedy Space Center. Image: Nancy Atkinson
Nancy: And this is Maggie Persinger. And you get to work with all the fun technological things with video – can you tell us about that?
Maggie: Still and video. When anybody in the world from motion pictures, film, movies to newspapers, wants or needs something from KSC, or NASA, they come to me and I provide the research, the product, whatever it is that they need for their story, or for Clint Eastwood’s movie “Space Cowboys,” whatever it is. So it’s a lot. I not only deal with that, I have to make sure the jobs are shot, and that I get the copies, and I have to know the entire space program, what is going on everywhere. So it’s a difficult job for one person. There used to be three NASA people that did videos and two people did stills, so now I do it all.
Nancy: What has been the most interesting thing you’ve had to send videos or stills to?
Maggie: I think the most interesting were things like “Space Cowboys,” “Armegeddon,” “Contact,” things like that. When they used to come here and film, for a year and a half before they came and did that movie, I worked with the background people. I did things like provide them blanket pieces, tile pieces so they could build their sets. I got them the color chart for the ET tank. It was very long and involved. So whenever you deal with everybody – there’s a big Discovery program coming out about Australia. So I constantly am keeping track of these people and sending them new things. So there’s a lot of stories – there’s of interest around the world that people in Iowa don’t know realize. But I do! Because I deal with them so I know there is a lot of interest in the space program.
Nancy: I know that you are very busy even after press conferences, you are quickly handing out audio for us, it’s been great!
Maggie: That’s the thing, actually launch time is my easiest time. Even though you guys are here, I’m just dedicated to launch, all of you for this. It’s when you all leave and I have to get back to my routine when it gets tough. Because I’m dealing with the entire world, get everything shot, keeping up the library, making room – I’m constantly trying to make room for things, converting all the Quicktime files, — it’s busy. So everybody thinks it’s just busy at launch time! But launch time is my easiest time. I love launch day! It’s the rest of the time that is tough!
Nancy: Well thanks Maggie – it’s been great talking to you!
Maggie : It’s been good talking to you!
George Diller, Public Affairs Officer. George Diller, Public Affairs Officer at KSC, left, with NASA launch director Doug Lyons during a shuttle launch in 2007. Credit: AP
Nancy: The next voice you’ll hear you will probably recognize. He’s the voice of, I think almost all the launches here at Kennedy Space Center for the past several year. It’s George Diller. Hi George, thanks for talking with us today.
George: I do a lot of the launches but the shuttle launches we tend to spread out between among some of us in the office because there is a tremendous amount of preparation that goes into one of those so its hard for one person to do them all. I do do a lot more of the expendable launches, the unmanned launches and I really enjoy those particularly because the payloads are so different. They are deployable spacecraft that tend to be focused on space science, planetary exploration, astrophysics – those are the ones to me that have a certain amount of fascination, and always have way back from when I started here back in the late 70’s. In fact I cut my teeth as a newsman covering the space center for about five years and became particularly interested in the expendable vehicle launches with Viking, Voyager and Pioneer Venus. I’ve been here 29 years now and that still has the same attraction for me. We did launch those kinds of payloads on the shuttle for awhile and I got to work with those payloads in preparation for launch. But those all transitioned over to the expendable launch vehicles completely after the Challenger accident and the space shuttle was refocused on building the International Space Station.
If I look back probably at some of the missions that I have most enjoyed working on and doing the launch commentary for, probably the Hubble Space Telescope would the one that would be the highlight because I was directly involved with the telescope and the spacecraft payload testing and doing the commentary for launch, as well as for all the missions that have been done since that have gone up to service the telescope. So it really is quite a feeling to look back and say that I was a part of that for all of those Hubble Missions, both for the launch and all the flights that have followed to service it.
Probably the most memorable spacecraft that I have been directly involved with have been involved with particularly would be Cassini that went to Saturn and sent a probe down to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. Also Galileo that went to Jupiter and that was such a great success and the Magellan mission to Venus. So, I think I enjoy those kinds of missions because they are leaving low Earth orbit and going so much farther out that we can only hope that one day we’ll one day go to those places ourselves.
The shuttle missions have really become focused on the space station, and it’s kind of been fun on those flights to focus on a particular piece of flight hardware that’s going up to be attached to the station, and later on when there is some kind of reference to a particular component or something particular that has been attached to it, you can remember some involvement that you’ve had with it.
But I think the space station, is, when is all finished and we look back at the science that was done over the next 10 or 15 years, I think we are going to look back at it as probably one of the wonders of the world in terms of modern accomplishments just as we have the Hubble Space Telescope, because I think so much will come out of it that is focused to us right down here on the ground. It will translate to benefits such as new metals, new pharmaceuticals, new computer substrates; new potential cures for diseases, medicines that we can get to synthesize only in the microgravity – zero gravity environment of The potential of the space station is almost mind boggling.
And I’m hoping to be around long enough to look back at the history of the space station program and say, well, I was with NASA when we were putting this together, and I may be retired eventually, but I can look back and say, look at all of the great things that now have come from the program.
Nancy: As you see the end of the space shuttle program coming, what are your personal feelings about that?
George: Well, the shuttle is something that gives us the kind of capability and flexibility that we never had before and that we do not have any plans to have again. It has the tremendous ability in terms of being able to deploy payloads, to take large payloads to space, to be able to services things in space, to be able to service things in space, to be able to construct things in space, also to be able to take things up and bring them back. And looking forward we’re going to have more capable rockets but they don’t have the same flexibility in terms of the weight that they can bring up or bring things back or be able to servicing that the shuttle has become so famous for being able to do for things already up there. So I think we’ll miss that, but it’s going to be fun to be able to look back and say the shuttle gave us the only way could have ever built the space station. I think it is a very storied program in the history of NASA. I’m proud to say I was here for the first launch and I’ll be here for the last launch and I was in some way a part of that story.
Nancy: Could you tell us about what it takes to put everything together to do a launch commentary for NASA TV?
George: The launch commentaries are, when you start planning for one, not only are there all the materials that you have to put together, but you also have to work with the TV people on all the things you want to show during the broadcast. That means scheduling all the video to be shot over a certain amount of time as the spacecraft is being prepared for launch, then all the things you want to do to tell the story, such as the animations you want to show and you have to figure out where in the broadcast its going to fit with what you are doing. Then have to schedule for it, so it’s a lot more than just writing it. Although there’s a lot of it now that, as far as the shuttle is concerned, I can work from an outline. I really don’t have to read from a script, although if I’m doing something very mission specific I might need a script for some part of it, if it is very mission specific. So, for anybody doing a launch commentary, it’s not something you can just pull together in just an afternoon. It takes a fair amount of time to pull all that together, and then work with the TV people and tell them where you want to include it and you have to work out your shot sheet of the sequence you want all these things in, so I think it’s good, in a way, that we kind of rotate the shuttle launches in particular around the office because it takes a fair amount of work to put it together. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of work!
Nancy: I’ve noticed that it seems recently you’ve had extra people come on and talk about different things going on with the mission during the launch countdown.
George: On the shuttle side, yes. On the ELV side we’ve always kind of done that. Our ELV commentary is usually divided into two parts, because the commentaries run usually between two and two and a half hours, as a rule on an unmanned launch. The first part of it picks up at a certain point in the countdown, but it is very heavy on interviews and things that are associated with the mission aspect. Usually you’re doing all that while they are fueling the vehicle. So, it gives you the chance to talk about fueling and things going on, but basically it gives you time for the color.
And then the second half of it is really focused on the launch itself and the launch operations. So it is divided into two parts that way.
On the shuttle, its more of a desire on the part of NASA to include much more activity both in terms of the mission as well as features that tell a story in the countdown and include more background that the average guy watching NASA TV can relate to. So it has meant more features, and some are related to the mission and some are related to the countdown, some are more related to the astronauts, some are more related to the people that have been involved with it, so we try to broaden it out a little bit. I think that is the reason behind that, because the count is on for such a long time. It’s one for five to five and a half hours. I think there was a feeling that we needed to do that and we had enough time to do that.
Nancy: I know I always enjoy watching as much as I can because it is fun to watch the whole process of what takes place. And now that I’ve been here and have gotten to see that, like the astronauts walking out and seeing it live and in person, its been really fun being here.
George: There have been a coupel that have almost been extravaganzas because of the nature of the mission, like the John Glenn mission. That one, there was so much you could include in the commentary because of the history of John Glenn. And he is so modest. He didn’t want us to do any more than we customarily do. But how can you not? And he is such a favorite around here. When he was here for the countdown dress rehearsal and the training, it was hard to get him through these exercises and these tests because he was just being mobbed by the NASA workers and the KSC employees. They were pulling dollar bills out of their wallets to get him to sign. And he would never be rushed. The trainers would try to keep things moving, but he would not be rushed. He took time to talk to everybody and sign their bills.
When we had the Challenger accident, he was the first person on site after the accident. He flew down here immediately and was on a briefing that afternoon over in the news center. He absolutely loves this place. He’s never forgotten it and those are the kinds of missions that have a lot of public interest. Plus the return to flight missions after Challenger and Columbia those were always big because in each case it meant a re-focusing of the program in some way. And of course the last one will just be a blowout.
Nancy: Thanks very much for talking with us today, this has been a lot of fun.
George: All right!
Nancy: I hope you enjoyed as much as I did the conversations I had with some of the people from NASA TV. NASA TV is available through many cable and satellite providers, and you can also watch it online. Go to www.nasa.gov/ntv. Reporting from Kennedy Space Center, this is Nancy Atkinson
GOES-P launches from Kennedy Space Center. Image Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today.
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A Delta IV rocket rumbled and roared off launch pad 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Thursday evening, sending the GOES-P satellite soaring into a crisp and clear night sky. With liftoff at 6:57 p.m. EST, the rocket could be seen for several minutes after launch, and booster separation was clearly visible to observers on the NASA Causeway. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P, or GOES-P, is the latest in a series of meteorological satellites designed to watch for storm development and weather conditions on Earth as well as detect hazards with its emergency beacon support and Search and Rescue Transponder. It will take ten days for the satellite to maneuver to its geostationary equatorial orbit at 35,888 km (22,300 miles). Once there, GOES-P will get a new name: GOES-15.
It will take five months for all the instruments on board to be tested and calibrated. After that, GOES-15 will be a back-up satellite, stored on-orbit and ready for activation should one of the operational GOES satellites degrade or exhaust their fuel.
The satellite is a cooperative effort between NASA and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
GOES-P launch. Image Credit: Alan Walters (awaltersphoto.com) for Universe Today.
NOAA has two operational GOES satellites: GOES-12 in the east and GOES-11 in the west. Each provides continuous observations of environmental conditions in North, Central and South America and the surrounding oceans. GOES-13 is being moved to replace GOES-12, which will be positioned to provide coverage for South America as part of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems, or GEOSS.
Thanks to Alan Walters for great images of the launch.
On a personal note, I’ve now seen three different launches – each with a different launch vehicle — in just four weeks here at Kennedy Space Center (space shuttle Endeavour, SDO on Atlas and now GOES-P on the Delta IV.) KSC is a busy spaceport, indeed!
Over the years, scientists have debated the cause of the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Now, a panel of 41 international experts says it’s official: a massive asteroid around 15 kilometers wide slamming into Earth at Chicxulub, Mexico is the culprit. After surveying a wide variety of evidence for the competing theories, the panel said the telling evidence was the structures preserved in the interior of the crater. Computer models predicted how much rock was vaporized or ejected by the impact. “Our work lets us visualize the astonishing events of the few minutes after impact,” said Dr. Penny Barton, who led the group. “The front of the asteroid hit the Earth while the far side was still out in the upper atmosphere, punching a hole though the Earth’s atmosphere.”
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction was one of the biggest in earth’s history and geologic evidence of the impact has been discovered in rock layers from this time period, around the world. While the impact is widely accepted as the cause for the mass extinction, some critics disagreed, saying, for example, that the microfossils from the Gulf of Mexico show that the impact occurred well before the extinction and could not have been its primary cause.
The massive volcanism that produced the Deccan traps of India around this time has also been proposed as the main cause of the extinction. But in the panel’s review, the computer models synthesized the geologic evidence that support the impact hypothesis. The models showed that such an impact would have instantly caused devastating shock waves, a large heat pulse and tsunamis around the globe.
Moreover, a release of larger amounts of dust, debris and gases would have led to a prolonged cooling of Earth’s surface, low light levels and ocean acidification that would have decimated photosynthesizing plants and the species that relied on them.
The asteroid is believed to have hit Earth with a force one billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. It would have blasted material at high velocity into the atmosphere, triggering a chain of events that caused a global winter, wiping out much of life on Earth in a matter of days.
“As the asteroid vaporized explosively,” said Barton, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, “it created a crater 30 km deep and 100 km across, with sides as high as the Himalayas. However within only two minutes the sides collapsed inwards and the deepest parts of the crater rebounded upwards to leave a wide, shallow hollow.
“These terrifying events led to darkness and a global winter, resulting in the extinction of more than 70% of known species. The tiny shrew-like mammals which were around at that time proved better adapted to survival than the cumbersome dinosaurs, and the removal of these dominant animals paved the way for the radiation of the mammals and eventual emergence of humans on Earth.”
The team’s paper was published in the journal Science.
Here are some thunderstorm pictures. You can make any of these into your computer desktop wallpaper. Just click on an image to enlarge it, and then right-click and choose “Set as Desktop Background”.
Here’s a photo of thunderstorms above the Gulf Coast near Galveston Bay. These thunderstorms build in the morning out over the ocean and then move inland as the day warms up. This photo was taken from the space shuttle during mission STS-40.
This is a photo of some severe thunderstorms that formed in May, 2003. There were several very large tornadoes generated during this period that struck the midwest. This picture was taken by the space shuttle.
This is a world wide map of lightning. This shows the places in the world where lightning is mostly likely to happen. This is the total lightning accumulation over the course of a year.
Here’s an image of the Himalaya mountains seen from the space shuttle. You can see huge monsoon thunderstorms above Bangladesh and India. This is some of the regions that receive the most rainfall in the entire world.
This is a satellite photo of a severe storm that struck the Red Sea in 2006. It was so severe that it caused an Egyptian ferry to sink, carrying 1,300 people.
We have written many articles about storms for Universe Today. Here’s an article about dust storms on Mars, and here’s an article about storms on Saturn.
The Goddard Space Flight Center has a Flickr account showcasing a series of images of our own home planet. Called “Blue Marble,” these spectacular images are the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations in 2001 of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet. Your tax dollars at work, these images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public. This record includes preview images and links to full resolution versions up to 21,600 pixels across.
Our blue marble. Credit: NASA
Compare these new images to the original “Blue Marble” photograph, below, taken by the Apollo 17 crew in 1968. The original Blue Marble by Apollo 17.
Mosaic of microscopic images of Spirit underbelly on Sol 1925 (June 2009) showing the predicament of being stuck at Troy with wheels buried in the sulfate-rich martian soil. The sulfate deposits formed by aqueous (water-related) processes when this area dubbed “Home Plate’ was volcanically active. This false color mosaic has been enhanced and stretched to bring out additional details about the surrounding terrain and embedded wheels and distinctly show a pointy rock perhaps in contact with the underbelly. Spirit fortuitously discovered extensive new evidence for an environment of flowing liquid water at this location on Mars adjacent to ‘Home Plate’, an eroded over volcanic feature. Credit: Marco Di Lorenzo, Ken Kremer - NASA/JPL/Cornell
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The plucky Mars rover ‘Spirit’ may yet rove again !
She’ll just have to outwit and outlast the unavoidably harsh cold and desperately low power levels of the looming winter in Mars southern hemisphere. Rather long odds to be sure – but she’s done it before. Remember – at this moment on Sol 2192, Spirit is 75 months into her 3 month mission ! That’s 25 times beyond her “warrenty” as Rover Principal Investigator Prof. Steve Squyres of Cornell University is extremely fond of saying.
Spirit has been stuck in a rut since becoming mired in a sand trap of soft soil in April 2009. While driving on the western edge of ‘Home Plate’, she unknowingly broke through a hard surface crust (perhaps 1 cm thick) and sank into hidden soft sand beneath. Her wheels churned, sinking deeply – and became embedded in the sand trap at the place called ‘Troy’.
See the underbelly mosaic above, created by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer, to get a glimpse of the predicament Spirit lurched into with her sunken wheels. Note: we have significantly enhanced and stretched the mosaic to extract out hard to see details.
As luck would have it, “Troy is a great place to be stuck. It’s like getting stuck in front of Disneyland”, says John Callas the Mars Rover Project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Spirits wheels are buried in sulfate-rich Martian soil. “The sulfate deposits formed by aqueous [water-related] processes when volcanism was active at this area dubbed Home Plate”, says Roy Arvidson, the deputy Rover Principal Investigator. “Spirit has uncovered evidence for two timescales of water related processes”.
“The Troy area is one of the most scientifically interesting ones that we’ve found the whole mission, and we rarely have enough time to study something this thoroughly. So we’re putting that to good use”, Squyres told me.
Spirit Traverse close-up map shows route rover has traveled from Sol 200 to today. Spirit is located at black dot, adjacent to western edge of ‘Home Plate’ volcanic feature. Husband Hill is upper left of center. Click to enlarge. Credit: NASAAt a press briefing on 26 January 2010, NASA declared Spirit would henceforth be a “stationary lander” after exhaustive extrication efforts failed to ‘Free Spirit’. So the small remaining team of rover handlers are now busily getting Spirit ready for sleeping – and surviving – through plunging winter temperatures at her current parked position. Spirit may enter a ‘hibernation’ mode for weeks or even months at a time as she struggles to survive through the freezing winter cold of her upcoming 4th Martian winter.
Remarkably, just as Spirit was concluding her escape efforts and being put into her “stationary” winter parked position to achieve a more optimal tilt for power generation, she finally managed to move about 34 centimeters (13 inches) toward the south southeast in a series of drives beginning on Sol 2145 (Jan. 15, 2010). Her final movement was on Sol 2169 (Feb. 8, 2010). The left-rear wheel even moved out of a rut that it had dug into back in April 2009.
Spirit Traverse close-up map shows entire route rover has traveled until today. Spirit is located at black dot, adjacent to western edge of ‘Home Plate’ volcanic feature. Husband Hill is upper left of center. Click to enlarge. Credit: NASABut with the onset of winter and dropping power levels, time had just run out for further escape attempts. The team was forced to halt extrication efforts and focus instead on maximizing chances for mere survival. The goal was to adjust the tilt of the rover more towards the sun in order to increase the energy output generated from the wing like solar arrays. This strategy had been successfully implemented and saved Spirit during the last two Martian winters as she eked out just enough power to endure – and make new breakthrough (pun intended) science discoveries !
Given that Spirit did move 13 inches in the final drive attempts, I enquired whether NASA is reevaluating to try more driving IF she survives winter ?
Yes.
“The rover team does plan to try driving Spirit out of the immediate sand trap if the rover survives the winter. That was always a possibility”, Guy Webster informed me. He is the Public Affairs Officer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory which manages the Mars rover project for NASA. Webster cautioned that, “With only four working wheels, the expectation is that even if Spirit gets out of Troy, the rover will not be able to rove significant distance, but might reposition itself to reach different targets in the immediate vicinity”.
Due to the extremely low power levels, the team is implementing plans to minimize energy usage by shutting down almost all functions except keeping a master clock running and checking its power status periodically until it has enough power to reawaken. Even communications will only be on an sporadic basis.
As of Feb. 23, the power output was down to 163 watt-hours. That compares to roughly 900 watt hours at landing. Earlier in the mission, “the line of death” was considered to be in the 200-250 watt hour range. Now, out of necessity, the team has developed ways to operate the rover on somewhat less power.
To get an idea of just how deeply Spirit was embedded and better evaluate her chances to escape, the team seized on an idea that was completely different. For the very first time, they commanded Spirit to carefully maneuver the robotic arm to peek underneath the rover and image her underbelly using the microscopic imager (MI) mounted at the end of the arm’s ‘hand’.
“We used the MI in a new way, because we have no bellycam”, explained Callas.
This action was outside the design envelope of the arm and not previously contemplated partly because the MI is a short focuser, built to focus on objects only 6 centimeter (2.4 inches) away – as well as concerns for damaging the rover and arm assembly. Nonetheless it was hoped that the expected fuzzy pictures would clarify the situation somewhat and perhaps elucidate clues about the wheels and terrain.
Indeed, the underbelly images from Sol 1925 in June 2009 revealed significant new details on how deeply the wheels had sunk and also discerned an upward pointing rock, possibly in contact with the rovers belly. See our mosaic (above) assembled from the MI images. If the rover was caught on the rock, the wheels could be spinning aimlessly if not in firm contact with the soil and thereby obstruct potential escape movements.
At the time of her embedding, Spirit was making great progress towards her next science targets, ‘Von Braun’ mound and the ‘Goddard’ depression in hopes of further elucidating the historical record of flowing liquid water in the Columbia Hills region where Spirit safely landed on Jan 3, 2004.
‘Von Braun’ is the intriguing feature some 100 meters distant at the top left of the mosaic (below) created by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo for Spaceflight Now. ‘Troy’ is located approximately in the left of center foreground of the mosaic which was assembled from images taken by the Pancam imager just a few sols – martian days – before she became stuck. Pancam is bolted to the top of Spirits head like mast.
Mosaic of the area adjacent to Home Plate where Spirit remains stuck was made especially for Spaceflight Now, and is used by permission. It shows smooth area, foreground, that concealed slippery water related sulfate material where rover became stuck. Credit: Kenneth Kremer, Marco DiLorenzo, NASA/JPL/Cornell/Spaceflight Now
Teams had spent many months developing and testing numerous drive strategies to escape by using nearly identical replicas of the rovers at a test bed at the Jet Propulsion Lab. They solicited ideas worldwide from outside experts. No clear answers emerged, according to Project manager John Callas.
At last Spirit was commanded to move her 5 still functioning wheels. The 6th wheel had broken long ago after climbing down from Husband Hill (see our mosaic below). After a somewhat hopeful start, actual progress could only be measured in millimeters of movement. And her wheels began to sink deeper. Then another wheel broke, leaving only 4. Thus an already desperate situation became much worse with diminished wheel capacity. At last she moved that last foot, slightly improving her chances. And that’s the State of Spirit today.
Self portrait of Spirit atop Martian mountain top on Sol 618, September 2005. Spirit climbed for more than 1 year to reach the summit of Husband Hill where she made crucial discoveries related to water flowing on Mars. This mosaic was assembled by a group of mars enthusiasts at Unmannedspaceflight.com and originally published on the cover of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine on 14 November 2005. Credit: Marco Di Lorenzo, Doug Ellison, Bernhard Braun, and Kenneth Kremer – NASA / JPL/Cornell/Aviation Week & Space Technology
The solar powered Spirit is now tilted unfavorably, about 9 degrees to the south. The team stove mightily to obtain the desired northward tilt to achieve a better attitude for generating energy from the sun in the northern Martian sky.
Only time will tell the outcome. Let’s pray for clear skies for Spirit.
Squyres has often been quoted to say, “Never bet against the rovers. Those who have bet against the rovers have been repeatedly proven wrong !”
Spirit recorded this fisheye view with its rear hazard-avoidance camera after completing a drive during the 2,169th Martian day, or sol, of Spirit's mission on Mars (Feb. 8, 2010). The drive left Spirit in the position where the rover will stay parked during the upcoming Mars southern-hemisphere winter. The top of the image shows the underside of Spirit's solar array. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Here are some cool supernova pictures. You can make any of these images into your computer desktop wallpaper. Just click an image to enlarge it, and then right-click and choose “Set as Desktop Background”.
This is an image of a supernova remnant N132D, as photographed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. You can see how the shockwave of the supernova is colliding with the surrounding gas and dust in the nebula.
Here’s an image of supernovae seen by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers found many supernovae like this to determine that the expansion of the Universe is actually accelerating.
This is an image of an expanding shell of hot gas blasting away from a supernova that exploded in 1987. This photo was taken by Hubble in 1994, 7 years after the supernova.
This is a small portion of the Cygnus loop supernova remnant, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. This picture was taken in 1991.
Astronomer Johannes Kepler recorded the brightening of a star in the sky in 1604. We now know that this was a supernova exploding in the sky. Here’s a photo of the supernova remnant, taken 400 years after the supernova exploded.
Here’s another Where In The Universe Challenge, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. This week’s image was submitted by UT reader Jason Major, who is hoping this one will pose a challenge for everyone. But you know what to do: take a look at this image and see if you can determine where in the universe this image is from; give yourself extra points if you can name the instrument responsible for the image. We’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.
Good Luck!
UPDATE: The answer is now below.
This is Rembrandt Crater on Mercury as seen by the MESSENGER spacecraft. Rembrandt is a relatively young impact basin, and forming about 3.9 billion years ago, is younger than any other known impact region on the planet. Images from MESSENGER show pristine terrain on the outer portion of the crater, as well as unusual tectonic fault features, not found in any other big crater. You can read more about it in our previous article about “New Mysteries Unveiled on Mercury.”
Thanks once again to Jason Major for submitting this week’s image. Check back next week for another WITU challenge!
