NASA After the Space Shuttle

Now that the final space shuttle has landed, many thousands involved with it have lost their jobs, and budget cuts loom, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at the other projects NASA has been working on recently, and what will be keeping the agency busy in the coming years. There has been a flurry of discoveries and firsts just this year alone, as scientists have discovered a fourth moon around Pluto, and a spacecraft has entered orbit around the asteroid Vesta for the first time. Earlier this month the spacecraft Juno launched toward Jupiter, while workers prepared the next Mars rover, Curiosity, for launch by the end of this year. All of this on top of supporting existing missions to the sun, Mercury, Earth, Mars, Saturn and more. Collected here is just a small recent sampling of NASA's far-reaching projects and missions. [33 photos]

Rising from fire and smoke, NASA's Juno planetary probe, enclosed in its payload fairing, launches atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Leaving from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on August 5, 2011, the spacecraft will embark on a five-year journey to Jupiter. The solar-powered spacecraft will orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere and investigate the existence of a solid planetary core. (NASA/Scott Andrews)  

 

Where in the World? A Google Earth Puzzle

Looking at the world through via Google Earth offers striking images of the diversity of our planet and the impact that humans have had on it. Today's entry is a puzzle. We're challenging you to figure out where in the world each of the images below is taken. (You'll find answers and links at the bottom of the entry.) North is not always up in these pictures, and, apart from a bit of contrast, they are unaltered images provided by Google and its mapping partners. So I invite you to open up Google Earth (or Google Maps), have a look at the images below, and dive in. Good luck! [25 images]

This community lies near the intersection of seven rivers. (Answers are listed at the bottom of the page) (© Google, DigitalGlobe) 

Welcome Home, Atlantis

Today marks the end of an era. Three decades of missions came to a close this morning as the Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down in Florida after a 13-day trip to the International Space Station. All told, the 135 space shuttle missions have racked up more than 542 million miles in low earth orbit. Commander Chris Ferguson piloted the Atlantis to a safe landing at 5:52 a.m., and the spacecraft will soon undergo processing and decommissioning. It has been an emotional experience for residents and workers along Florida's Space Coast -- some 9,000 shuttle engineers, technicians, and other staff are being laid off, and the main tourism draw for the area has come to an end. Shown here, for one last time, is a look at a full shuttle mission, STS-135, the final flight of Atlantis. Also, be sure to see The History of the Space Shuttle, an earlier entry on In Focus. [39 photos]

A view of the space shuttle Atlantis and its payload on July 10, 2011, seen from the International Space Station. At the rear of the cargo bay is the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module, packed with supplies and spare parts for the ISS. (NASA) 

The History of the Space Shuttle

From its first launch 30 years ago to its final launch scheduled for next Friday, NASA's Space Shuttle program has seen moments of dizzying inspiration and of crushing disappointment. When next week's launch is complete, the program will have sent up 135 missions, ferrying more than 350 humans and thousands of tons of material and equipment into low Earth orbit. Fourteen astronauts have lost their lives along the way -- the missions have always been risky, the engineering complex, the hazards extreme. As we near the end of the program, I'd like to look back at the past few decades of shuttle development and missions as we await the next steps toward human space flight. [61 photos]

Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off from Kennedy Space Center, on April 12, 1981. Commander John Young and pilot Robert Crippen were onboard STS-1, the first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle program. (Reuters/NASA/KSC)  

Total lunar eclipse 15 June 2011

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The year's first total eclipse of the moon lasted an unusually long time, a rare celestial treat for a wide swath of the globe. Except if you were in the United States and Canada. North America was left out of Wednesday's lunar spectacle, which was visible from start to finish from eastern Africa, central Asia, the Middle East and western Australia. The period when Earth's shadow completely blocked the moon -- known as totality -- lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes. The last time the moon was covered for that long was in July 2000, when it lasted 7 minutes longer than that. (23 images)

A Trip Around Our Solar System

Robotic probes launched by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and others are gathering information for us right now all across the solar system. We currently have spacecraft in orbit around the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Saturn; several others on their way to smaller bodies; and a few on their way out of the solar system entirely. On Mars, a rover called Spirit has just been officially left for dead, after two years of radio silence from it -- but its twin, Opportunity, continues on its mission, now more than 2,500 days beyond its originally planned 90-days. With all these eyes in the sky, I'd like to take the opportunity to put together a photo album of our Solar system -- a set of family portraits, of sorts -- as seen by our astronauts and mechanical emissaries. [38 photos]

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite captures an image of the Earth's moon crossing in front of the Sun, on May 3, 2011. (NASA/GSFC/SDO)

Unrealistic Scenes

Some things you'll never see.

I've always been captivated by the beauty of our world, and often dream of the things that lay just beyond what we can see.  I wanted to create images of scenes that are not-quite real, but that almost could be.

 

 

Photographer Mikko Lagerstedt

Space Shuttle Endeavour's final voyage

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Endeavour's astronauts accomplished the No. 1 objective of their mission last Thursday,
installing a $2 billion cosmic ray detector on the International Space Station to scan the invisible universe for years to come.
This is the next-to-last shuttle mission and the final spacewalks of the program scheduled, meant to leave the space station
in the best condition possible for the next decade. The 30-year shuttle era will end in July with the flight of Atlantis.
On Monday, three of the six space station residents will head home in their Russian Soyuz capsule after a five-month mission.
In a unique photo op, the departing crew will photograph Endeavour parked at the space station. Then on Wednesday, Fincke
and Feustel will venture back out for spacewalk No. 3. Endeavour, under the command of Mark Kelly, husband of wounded
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, will remain at the orbiting outpost for another week. Landing is scheduled for June 1. (30 images)

 

This Thursday, May 19, 2011 picture provided by NASA shows the space shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station as the space station's robotic arm transfers the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 from the shuttle for installation on the ISS. AP