Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt was lost because space radiation disrupted its computer system, a commission investigating the incident said on Friday. The investigation found no faults with the spacecraft’s hardware, the commission said in a summary of its report, released on the website of the Federal Space Agency. Phobos-Grunt, Russia’s first interplanetary probe in years, was to travel to Phobos, a moon of Mars, and bring back samples of its soil by 2014. The $165 million spacecraf [...]

One of NASA's industry partners, Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC), recently delivered the primary structure of its first Dream Chaser flight test vehicle to the company's facility in Louisville, Colo., where it will be assembled and integrated with secondary systems. This is one of 12 milestones to be completed under SNC's funded Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). "It's rewarding to see our partner's ideas and concepts come to fruition," said CCP Program Manager Ed  [...]

HOUSTON -- More than 6,300 individuals applied to become a NASA astronaut between Nov. 15, 2011 and Jan. 27, the second highest number of applications ever received by the agency. After a thorough selection process, which includes interviews and medical examinations, nine to 15 people will be selected to become part of the 21st astronaut class. "This is a great time to join the NASA family," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Our newest astronauts could launch aboard the first commerci [...]

Aboard the orbiting International Space Station, Expedition 30 Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Anton Shkaplerov continued preparations Friday for their Feb. 16 spacewalk by gathering and sorting tools and preparing the Pirs docking compartment airlock. During the 5.5-hour excursion, the two cosmonauts will move one of the two Strela hand-operated cranes from Pirs to the Poisk module and install five debris shields on the Zvezda service module. If time permits, Kononenko and Shkaplerov al [...]

New images from ESA’s Mars Express show the Syrtis Major region on Mars. Once thought to be a sea of water, the region is now known to be a volcanic province dating back billions of years. Syrtis Major can be spotted from Earth even with relatively small telescopes – the near-circular dark area on the planet stretches over 1300 x 1500 km. Now, however, we know that the region is volcanic in origin, devoid of water and that the changes in its shape are due to dust and sand being blow [...]

UPHAM, NM – New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) officials announced today a launch of a “STIG-A” rocket designed and built by Armadillo Aerospace. The launch took place from Spaceport America's vertical launch complex on Saturday, January 28, 2012. The research and development test flight was a non-public, unpublished event at the request of Armadillo Aerospace, as the company is testing proprietary advanced launch technologies. Saturday’s Armadillo launch successfully lifted [...]

Iran has successfully launched an observation satellite, Iranian news network Press TV reported on Friday. The domestically-built Navid (Harbinger) satellite is designed to take pictures of the Earth at low altitudes of 250 to 370 kilometers. Press TV hailed it as the “first satellite to be completely designed and built by Iranian experts.” The head of Iran’s Space Agency, Hamid Fazeli, earlier announced plans to establish a “national satellite launch base” in the Islamic repu [...]

A crewed mission to the moon is possible by 2020, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Thursday. "Today science is ripe for using the moon. I think that by 2020 a man will land on the moon,” Popovkin said. He also said Russia’s previously announced cosmonaut recruitment drive will focus on preparing crews for a moon mission. The competition will be open for every Russian citizen with technical or me [...]

One of NASA's industry partners, United Launch Alliance (ULA), successfully completed two milestones that could eventually lead toward the certification of its Atlas V launch vehicle for human spaceflight. In December, ULA conducted a series of detailed reviews that reflected the culmination of efforts involving technical experts and representatives from NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). “ULA gave us an invaluable opportunity to get to know its Atlas V systems and subsystems thro [...]

The Expedition 30 crew of the orbiting International Space Station tackled a heavy workload Thursday with a special focus on preparations for a spacewalk scheduled for Feb. 16. Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Oleg Kononenko spent most of their day gathering tools and preparing their Orlan spacesuits. During the five-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the two cosmonauts will move one of the two Strela hand-operated cranes from the Pirs docking compartment to the Poisk module and install five de [...]

Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope got a uniquely close-up look at the brightest "magnified" galaxy yet discovered. This observation provides a unique opportunity to study the physical properties of a galaxy vigorously forming stars when the universe was only one-third its present age. A so-called gravitational lens is produced when space is warped by a massive foreground object, whether it is the sun, a black hole or an entire cluste [...]

Juno Mission Status Report PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's solar-powered Juno spacecraft successfully refined its flight path Wednesday with the mission's first trajectory correction maneuver. The maneuver took place on Feb. 1. It is the first of a dozen planned rocket firings that, over the next five years, will keep Juno on course for its rendezvous with Jupiter. "We had a maneuver planned soon after launch but our Atlas V rocket gave us such a good ride we didn't need to make any trajectory [...]

Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, and Didier Faivre, Director of the Galileo Program and Navigation-related Activities at the European Space Agency (ESA), today signed an agreement in London to launch satellites in Europe’s Galileo satellite positioning system by Ariane 5 launchers. This agreement provides for the possibility of using Ariane 5 launchers in 2014 and 2015 to complete the deployment of the Galileo constellation. Arianespace will have launched the 26 satellit [...]

PASADENA, Calif. -- A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study. GRAIL consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each of which is equipped with a MoonKAM. The images were taken as part of a test of Ebb's MoonKAM on Jan. [...]

Hawthorne, CA – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has successfully test fired SuperDraco, a powerful new engine that will play a critical role in the company’s efforts to change the future of human spaceflight. SpaceX’s launch escape system has many advantages over past systems. It is inherently safer because it is not jettisoned like all other escape systems. This distinction provides astronauts with the unprecedented ability to escape from danger at any point during the la [...]

Russia may repeat the Mars-500 experiment simulating a crewed flight to the Red Planet on the International Space Station (ISS), the head of the Russian Space Federal Agency Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin said on Thursday. “Mars-500 was a very useful thing in terms of studying people's psychology…We are now seriously considering the possibility of repeating this experiment in space,” Popovkin said in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio, adding that Moscow is now in talks with NASA and the [...]

The six-member Expedition 30 crew is counting down to the Feb. 16 Russian spacewalk. Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Oleg Kononenko will exit the Pirs docking compartment to relocate a small crane and attach debris shields to the Zvezda service module. They spent their morning reviewing the spacewalk’s timeline with the Russian Mission Control Center. Commander Dan Burbank reviewed robotics software with the two Russian spacewalkers. Nicknamed DOUG for Dynamic On-board Ubiquitous Gra [...]

Russia will send another sample mission to the Martian moon Phobos if the European Space Agency (ESA) decides not to include Russia in its ExoMars program, the head of Russia’s space agency said on Tuesday. Phobos-Grunt, Russia's most ambitious planetary mission in decades, was launched on November 9, however, it was lost due to propulsion failure and fell back to Earth on January 15. "We are holding consultations with the ESA about Russia’s participation in the ExoMars project… If n [...]

Space radiation triggered a glitch in the on-board computer system causing the recent crash of Russia’s Mars probe, Federal Space Agency head Vladimir Popovkin said on Tuesday. “Two components of the onboard computer system were spontaneously rebooted and it switched into a standby mode,” he said. “The most likely reason [for the glitch] is the impact of heavy charged space particles,” he said. Another possible cause could have been defective microchips imported from abroad, h [...]

Russian astronomers are planning to start their own search for planets outside the Solar System using ground-based telescopes, head of the Institute for Space Research Lev Zelyony said on Wednesday. “Scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory are planning to use ground-based instruments to study the transit of planets around their parent stars,” Zelyony said at a roundtable meeting at RIA Novosti headquarters in Moscow. The search for extrasolar planets or exoplanets is one of the fastest [...]