Start of the Cassini Equinox Mission

June 30 2008 marks the end of the four-year primary mission for the Cassini spacecraft and the start of the extended mission. Approval for the two-year extension, called the Cassini Equinox Mission, was announced by NASA in April 2008.

The mission extension builds upon the success of the primary mission. Some key scientific objectives of this extended mission are :

• to study in more detail the Saturnian moons, in particular Titan and Enceladus;
• to monitor seasonal effects on Titan and Saturn;
• to explore new regions of the Saturnian magnetosphere;
• to observe the unique ring geometry of the Saturn equinox in August 2009 - when sunlight will pass directly through the plane of the rings.

Cassini-Huygens is a joint NASA/ESA/ASI mission to explore Saturn, Titan and the other moons of the Saturnian system. The mission has two distinct elements: the Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe, the latter provided by ESA.

Source : ESA Science Cassini-Huygens homepage

Space Quote - SpaceFaring

" All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct "

Carl Sagan - American astronomer, astrochemist, and author

Living and working on Earthen Moonscape

Conditions on the moon will be harsher, but prototype NASA robotic vehicles and their developers braved sand storms and unprecedented temperature swings on sweeping dunes near Moses Lake, Wash., this month to prepare for the future.

Teams from seven NASA centers and one university coordinated their activities on the Moses Lake Sand Dunes from June 2-13 to gain hands-on experience with specific technical challenges anticipated when humans return to the moon by 2020 and begin to explore the lunar surface and set up initial outposts.

* X-clusive : Thanks to one D-RATS guy who answered me on Twitter, here is the photo album from the 2008 June Field test!

NASA's Desert Research and Technology Studies (D-RATS) Team :

Every September, after the summer rain backs off but before the mornings get too cold, a pack of RATS descends on the desert near Flagstaff, Ariz., to spend two weeks testing technologies that will play a vital role in the future of space exploration.

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Roughly 150 engineers and scientists participate in the NASA program, known as Desert Research and Technology Studies, or "Desert RATS." The 10-year-old program is part of the agency's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate and involves groups from several NASA centers and universities. During the annual trip out west, they take advantage of the variety of desert terrains to test new or improved equipment that astronauts may use during excursions on the surface of the moon. Projects in testing range from computer hardware and software to spacesuits, rovers and astronaut habitats.


The interactivity, cooperation and rehearsals between the Desert RATS teams at various NASA centers and universities continue throughout every year, culminating in the annual desert test. This ongoing process means problems are rooted out long before new flight hardware is made, helping to ensure these new technologies will be ready for the next giant leap in human space exploration.

"It's surreal to see the crew members walking around like they will on the moon again and someday on Mars, taking rock samples, reporting on what they're doing, etc." a space engineer said. "It just feels like you're there."

KSC's News : Desert RATS 2008

NASA's : Desert RATS 2007

NASA EDGE's Blog

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A NASA MMO video game !

Development of a NASA-based massively multiplayer online learning game :

The NASA Learning Technologies (LT) is currently investigating the development of a NASA-based massively multiplayer online educational game (MMO) :

Persistent immersive synthetic environments in the form of MMO gaming and social virtual world, initially popularized as gaming and social settings, are now finding growing interest as education and training venues. There is increasing recognition that these synthetic environments can serve as powerful “hands-on” tools for teaching a range of complex subjects.

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Virtual worlds with scientifically accurate simulations could permit learners to tinker with chemical reactions in living cells, practice operating and repairing expensive equipment, and experience microgravity, making it easier to grasp complex concepts and transfer this understanding quickly to practical problems. MMOs help players develop and exercise skills like strategic thinking, interpretative analysis, problem solving, plan formulation and execution, team-building and cooperation, and adaptation to rapid change.

The power of games as educational tools is rapidly gaining recognition. NASA is in a position to develop an online game that functions as a persistent, synthetic environment supporting education as a laboratory, a massive visualization tools and collaborative workspace while simultaneously drawing users into a challenging, game-play immersion.

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The Space Quote - Odds

" Why spend billions to place a man on the Moon? If we don't, we may lose the Earth. If we do, we may gain the universe. You couldn't ask for better odds "

Isaac Asimov - Russian-born American author and professor of biochemistry.

Europe’s automated ship docks to the ISS !

ATV Jules Verne, the European Space Agency’s first resupply and reboost vehicle, has successfully performed a fully automated docking with the International Space Station (ISS).

This docking marks the beginning of Jules Verne’s main servicing mission to deliver cargo, propellant, water, oxygen and propulsion capacity to the Station, as well as ESA’s entry into the restricted club of the partners able to access the orbital facility by their own means !

Source : Jules Verne ATV Blog

ATV Jules Verne demonstrates key capabilities

29 March 2008 - ESA's Jules Verne ATV (the first european cargo spaceship) today demonstrated its ability to navigate safely from a point 39 km behind the ISS to a stand-off point just 3.5 km away using relative GPS navigation. The vessel then executed an Escape manoeuvre commanded from the ATV Control Centre in which the craft flew off to a safe distance.

Today’s demonstration also confirmed Jules Verne is able to establish a continuous two-way data link with the ISS. Using the high-rate S-band communication link, which was switched on at a distance of 40 km from the ISS, Jules Verne for the first time conducted relative GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) measurements with the Station. Relative GPS is a navigation technique executed by computers between the ATV's GPS receiver and the ISS GPS receiver that enables ATV to navigate relative to the Station with very high accuracy.

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For both the flight control team in Toulouse, France and the ISS flight crew, this 64 kilobits/sec transmission rate also made it possible to test all the crucial data and communication connections between the two spacecraft, including some monitoring capability on both sides to send and receive communications.

When Jules Verne reached the closest holding position, at 3.5 km from the ISS, the bus-sized spaceship turned on its external tracking lights and activated the Russian-built Kurs rendezvous radar with equipment on both spacecraft. The robust and historical Kurs system, a concept which has been used for decades, provides relative distance and velocity with independent data for the crew monitoring during Jules Verne's final approach to the Station.

During the demonstration the astronauts on board ISS reported they were able to see Jules Verne with the naked eye. The spacecraft could also be seen via screens inside the ATV Control Centre.

Data collected throughout the first demonstration day will now be analysed by the ESA JADOR (Jules Verne ATV Demonstration Objectives Report) team. A report will be submitted to the ISS Mission Management Team. After an assessment and authorisation on 30 March, ATV can proceed to Demonstration Day 2 on Monday (including an approach to within 11 m of the ISS). Docking with the ISS is scheduled on Thursday (3rd of April 2008), soon after the Demo Day 2 Report.

Source : ESA

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Cassini Spacecraft Finds Ocean May Exist Beneath Titan's Crust

March 20, 2008 - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn's moon Titan.

"With its organic dunes, lakes, channels and mountains, Titan has one of the most varied, active and Earth-like surfaces in the solar system," said Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, "Now we see changes in the way Titan rotates, giving us a window into Titan's interior beneath the surface."

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Members of the mission's science team used Cassini's Synthetic Aperture Radar to collect imaging data during 19 separate passes over Titan between October 2005 and May 2007. The radar can see through Titan's dense, methane-rich atmospheric haze, detailing never-before-seen surface features and establishing their locations on the moon's surface. Using data from the radar's early observations, the scientists and radar engineers established the locations of 50 unique landmarks on Titan's surface. They then searched for these same lakes, canyons and mountains in the reams of data returned by Cassini in its later flybys of Titan. They found prominent surface features had shifted from their expected positions by up to 19 miles. A systematic displacement of surface features would be difficult to explain unless the moon's icy crust was decoupled from its core by an internal ocean, making it easier for the crust to move. "We believe that about 62 miles beneath the ice and organic-rich surface is an internal ocean of liquid water mixed with ammonia," said Bryan Stiles of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The study of Titan is a major goal of the Cassini-Huygens mission because it may preserve, in deep-freeze, many of the chemical compounds that preceded life on Earth. Titan is the only moon in the solar system that possesses a dense atmosphere. The moon's atmosphere is 1.5 times denser than Earth's. Titan is the largest of Saturn's moons, bigger than the planet Mercury."The combination of an organic-rich environment and liquid water is very appealing to astrobiologists," Lorenz said. "Further study of Titan's rotation will let us understand the watery interior better, and because the spin of the crust and the winds in the atmosphere are linked, we might see seasonal variation in the spin in the next few years." Cassini scientists will not have long to wait before another go at Titan. On March 25, just prior to its closest approach at an altitude of 620 miles, Cassini will employ its Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer to examine Titan's upper atmosphere. Immediately after closest approach, the spacecraft's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer will capture high-resolution images of Titan's southeast quadrant.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

More : see NASA.gov

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The Space Quote - Dinosaurs

" The dinosaurs failed to survive due to the lack of a space program... "

Arthur C. CLARKE - Writer and inventor, author of 2001 : A Space Odyssey.

Columbus lab joins the ISS

Europe now has a permanent basis for research in space!

16 Feb. 2008 : The European Columbus laboratory, launched with the US STS-122 mission, has been attached to the International Space Station during a spacewalk on Monday.

Rest of the week, both crews were busy with tasks to activate Columbus. Now all of the on-orbit laboratory core systems are activated and two european experiments are installed on the outside of the module, exposing facilities to the harsh environment of space and observing the sun. Four others scientific experiments will be engaged during next four weeks by the french astronaut Léopold Eyharts.

Would you like to know more ?

Earth Life Forms Ejected on Asteroid Impact Could Survive and Return Again

If an asteroid or comet impacted Earth, the resulting ejection of materials could contain life forms. According to a study published in the journal Astrobiology, these life forms could survive and then seed another planet or moon with life. Additionally, Earth could also be re-seeded with life by those same life forms.

If rock fragments containing embedded microorganisms were ejected into space, at least some of those organisms might survive and reseed Earth or seed another planetary surface able to support life. This scenario, which is called lithopanspermia was examined in studies called systematic shock recovery experiments designed to simulate this type of situation where microorganisms are transported between planets via meteorites.

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The researchers sandwiched dry layers of three kinds of biological test ingredients, including bacterial endospores, endolithic cyanobacteria, and epilithic lichens, into rocks analogous to rocks from Mars. They then simulated the shock pressures Martian meteorites experienced when they were ejected from Mars and determined the ability of the organisms to survive the harsh conditions.

The organisms are hardy examples of microbes that can withstand extreme environmental stress and represent potential 'hitchhikers' within impact-ejected rocks.

And not only is it plausible that Mars rocks could be transferred to Earth and vice versa, but ejected rocks from Earth could possibly return and land back on their home planet. Given the contemplation of the destruction of life on Earth, it’s somewhat comforting to think that we could perhaps start over again from our own ingredients.

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The Space Quote - Evolution

" We're right in the middle of Life on Earth. What state of evolution will we have reached when the sun implodes and turns the Earth to glass ? And what solutions will we have found to the ultimate question of our survival ? "

Philippe STARCK - Visionary designer, artistic director at Virgin Galactic.

Astrium rockets into space tourism

The flight of your life !

EADS-Astrium has unveiled a revolutionary new vehicle for space tourism. This business-jet looking spacecraft is designed to carry four passengers 100 km up into space, giving them more than three minutes of ‘zero G’ or weightlessness experience !

The Astrium space jet will take off and land conventionally from a standard airport using its jet engines. However, once the craft is airborne at an altitude of about 12 km, the rocket engines will be ignited to give sufficient acceleration to reach 100 km. In only 80 seconds the craft will have climbed to 60 km altitude. The highly innovative seats balance themselves to minimize the effects of acceleration and deceleration, ensuring the greatest passenger comfort and safety. The rocket propulsion system is then shut down as the ship-s inertia carries it on to over 100 km, where passengers will become one of the very few to experience zero gravity in space.

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The pilot will control the craft using small rocket thrusters enabling passengers to hover weightlessly for 3 minutes and to witness the most spectacular view of Earth imaginable. After slowing down during descent, the jet engines are restarted for a normal and safe landing at a standard airfield. The entire trip will last approximately an hour and a half.

Astrium is proposing the one stage system as it is considered the safest and most economical to operate. If development begins in 2008, a first commercial flight would be possible by 2012.

The development of a new vehicle able to operate in altitudes between aircraft (20km) and below satellites (200 km) could well be a precursor for rapid transport -point-to-point- vehicles or quick access to Space - opening up previously unexplored territory. Its development will contribute to maintaining (and even enhancing) European competences in core technologies of Space Transportation.

As single industrial prime contractor for Ariane 5, main European contributor to the International Space Station and as a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS, Astrium has the necessary expertise and know-how for manned space flight.

As it is a commercial project, private capital will be the main source of funding. The financial envelope, which will be around one billion euros, could be completed by refundable loans and by regional development funding. Return on investment will come from operations of vehicles for the emerging and promising market of suborbital space tourism. The cost per flight per passenger would be around 150,000 to 200,000 Euros.

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Space cO-Op in French :

If you whant to enjoy the power of the Space cO-Op Search Engine and read the latest news about space exploration in French,

Just visit ADN - ASTRO *, the french astrobiotechnology weblog :

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Space cO-Op Search Engine : the Google custom search engine specialized for space exploration !

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You want to cO-Op for Space in French ? Just visit :

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The Space Quote - Cradle

" Earth is the cradle of humanity but one cannot live in the cradle forever "

Konstantin TSIOLKOVSKY in 1911 - Russian scientist and mathematician, father of astronautics.

More NASA images of the day...

Browse into "NASA image of the day" files thanks to the arrows (on the left of the image), or take a look at the "Earth observatory" and "Astronomy pic of the day" images thanks to the icon top left of the picture...

Go back to the whole blog...

NASA ISS image archive

NASA's archive of the International Space Station : 18 287 pictures !