by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France-Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Two American astronauts on Friday wrapped up crucial repairs to the International Space Station’s robotic arm, with just weeks to spare before the next cargo ship arrives in early November, NASA said. During a six hour, 49 minute spacewalk, NASA’s Joe Acaba and Randy Bresnik put the finishing touches on repairs to the Canadian-made 57-foot (17-meter) long arm, called Canadarm 2. The arm has been […]
Tag: NASA
Close call: house-sized passing asteroid to give Earth a near-miss Thursday, to test Earth’s warning systems
by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — A house-size asteroid will give Earth a near-miss Thursday, passing harmlessly inside the Moon’s orbit while giving experts a rare chance to rehearse for a real-life strike threat. Dubbed 2012 TC4, the space rock will shave past at an altitude of less than 44,000 kilometres (27,300 miles) — just above the 36,000-km plane at which hundreds of geosynchronous satellites orbit the Earth. That […]
US spacewalkers install ‘new eyes’ at space station
MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Two US astronauts installed a high-definition video camera at the International Space Station Tuesday and made more progress on repairs to the lab’s robotic arm, NASA said. NASA spokesman Rob Navias described the camera equipment as offering “new eyes” to the orbiting outpost, as live video showed astronaut Randy Bresnik in sharp detail, floating in his white spacesuit. The previous camera had aged, and was tinting images pink. Another camera […]
US spacewalkers repair aging ISS robotic arm
MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Two NASA astronauts wrapped up a successful spacewalk Thursday to repair the International Space Station’s aging robotic arm, the US space agency said. The outing by Americans Randy Bresnik and Mark Vande Hei ended at 3 pm (1900 GMT), marking a “very successful day,” a NASA spokesman said. The spacewalk lasted six hours and 55 minutes, almost a half hour longer than planned because the pair managed to tack on […]
SpaceX’s Musk unveils plan to reach Mars by 2022
by Glenda Kwek Agence France-Presse ADELAIDE, Australia (AFP) — Futurist and inventor Elon Musk unveiled ambitious plans Friday to send cargo ships to Mars in five years and use rockets to carry people between Earth’s major cities in under half-an-hour. The founder of SpaceX said a planned interplanetary transport system, codenamed BFR (Big Fucking Rocket), would be downsized so it could carry out a range of tasks that would then pay for future Mars missions. […]
Lockheed Martin unveils reusable water-powered Mars lander
ADELAIDE, Australia (AFP) — A reusable, water-powered Mars lander that will allow humans to explore the Red Planet from an orbiting ‘base camp’ as early as the 2030s was unveiled Friday by US defence giant Lockheed Martin. Governments and private firms are collaborating on projects to send humans to new frontiers, with NASA planning missions next decade into the space between Earth and the Moon to prepare for trips to Mars. Lockheed Martin has been […]
Largest asteroid in a century to whiz by Sept 1
MIAMI, United States (AFP) — The largest asteroid in more than a century will whiz safely past Earth on September 1 at a safe but unusually close distance of about 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers), NASA said. The asteroid was discovered in 1981, and is named Florence after the famed 19th century founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. “Florence is the largest asteroid to pass this close to our planet since the first near-Earth […]
Mars weather: ‘Cloudy, chance of nighttime snowstorm’
PARIS, France (AFP) — Mars is buffeted by turbulent snowstorms that occur only at night, according to a study released Monday that revises our understanding of Red Planet weather. Up to now, it was thought that snow falling from low-lying Martian clouds settled slowly and sparsely to the ground in a environment bereft of violent winds. The new findings, reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, suggest that ice-water particles swirling in a storm hit the […]
Total solar eclipse begins on US West Coast
by Sébastien VUAGNAT / with Kerry SHERIDAN in Charleston Agence France-Presse MADRAS, United States – Emotional sky-gazers on the US West Coast cheered and applauded Monday as the Sun briefly vanished behind the Moon — a rare total solar eclipse that will stretch across North America for the first time in nearly a century. Eclipse chasers and amateur star watchers alike converged in cities along the path of totality, a 70-mile (113-kilometer) wide path running through 14 […]
America’s total eclipse a ‘once in a lifetime event’ – NASA scientist
(Reuters) — America’s coast-to-coast total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 is a must-see, “once in a lifetime event,” a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said on Wednesday. Michelle Thaller also urged the public to use safety glasses or other homemade devices to avoid looking directly at the sun. “It’s never safe to look at the sun with unprotected eyes. If even a little bit of the sun’s surface is still exposed you can hurt […]
Mars Rover visits Atlanta; tours US Eastern Seaboard
By Phillip Toledo EBC Florida Bureau ATLANTA (Eagle News) – Residents of Atlanta, Georgia caught a rare glimpse of space travel to the Red Planet this summer at The Battery at Sun Trust Park as the Kennedy Space Center kicked off the east coast summer tour of its Mars Rover concept vehicle. Curious children and adults were able to see a prototype or concept of what an actual Mars Rover would look like. The exhibit […]
Other planets may never be as hospitable as Earth: study
PARIS, France (AFP) — Scientists dealt a blow Monday to the quest for organisms inhabiting worlds besides Earth, saying our planet was unusual in its ability to host liquid water — the key ingredient for life. It was thought likely that distant worlds orbiting stars similar to our Sun would go through water-rich phases. This would happen when the young, dim star of an icy, lifeless planet — such as early Earth — starts warming, […]





