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Antares rocket launches cargo ship after 2-year gap

Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket lifts off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. (Credit: NASA TV)

Orbital ATK’s Antares two-stage rocket sent a robotic Cygnus cargo spaceship on its way to the International Space Station today, nearly two years after a launch pad failure forced an engine overhaul.

The Antares rocket blasted off from NASA’s Wallops Fllight Facility in Virginia right on time, at 7:45 p.m. ET (4:45 p.m. PT). NASA said the launch could have been seen by skywatchers across a wide swath of the East Coast, weather permitting.

Ten minutes after launch, the cylindrical Cygnus craft separated from the second stage, heading for the station with 5,100 pounds of supplies. After a series of checkouts, the Cygnus will approach the station for a rendezvous on Oct. 23.

This was the first Antares launch since October 2014, when the rocket and its payload blew up just seconds after liftoff. The failure was traced to a turbopump failure in one of the Antares’ refurbished 40-year-old Russian engines. In order to return to flight, Orbital ATK had to replace Antares’ engines with upgraded RD-181 engines from Russia. Wallops’ Pad-0A also had to be repaired.

In the meantime, Orbital ATK launched two Cygnus ships on space station resupply missions from Florida late last year and early this year, using United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rockets.

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Obama talks up NASA’s vision for Mars

An artist’s conception shows one configuration for an orbital habitat complex suitable for Mars. (Credit: Lockheed Martin)

President Barack Obama is throwing a spotlight on NASA’s plan for Mars exploration – and habitation – in advance of this week’s White House-backed conference on the frontiers of technology.

“We have set a clear goal vital to the next chapter of America’s story in space: sending humans to Mars by the 2030s and returning them safely to Earth, with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time,” Obama said in an essay published today on CNN.com.

The president’s space vision statement comes in the wake of SpaceX billionaire founder Elon Musk’s unveiling of a plan that could theoretically start putting settlers on Mars before NASA astronauts get there.

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Pluto’s ocean may go deeper than Earth’s

The left side of Pluto’s bright “heart” is known informally as Sputnik Planum. (Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI)

Scientists have been saying for months that Pluto could have a salty, sloshing ocean beneath its icy surface, but now they’ve worked out just how deep it could go. The answer? As deep as 60 miles, or nine times the depth of Earth’s deepest seas.

The estimate, based on computer modeling of the impact dynamics behind a heart-shaped region of Pluto, was published this month in Geophysical Research Letters.

The bright-colored “heart,” first seen last year by NASA’s New Horizons probe, is arguably Pluto’s best-known surface feature. But it’s actually two features. Scientists say the left lobe of the heart, known informally as Sputnik Planum, was created in the aftermath of an ancient impact. The object that made that impact is thought to have been about 120 miles (200 kilometers) wide.

In June, researchers reported that the geological features mapped on Pluto’s surface would be consistent with the presence of a liquid water ocean far below, perhaps heated by the decay of radioactive materials in Pluto’s rocky core. But they didn’t estimate the size of the ocean.

This month’s findings address that question.

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NASA record set as spacefliers return to Earth

A photo taken by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins shows the Soyuz craft’s fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere, followed by a blazing trail of debris. (Credit: Kate Rubins via NASA TV)

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams returned to Earth from the International Space Station in the company of two Russian cosmonauts tonight, setting a U.S. spaceflight record in the process.

Today marked 534 days of cumulative time in space for Williams, which makes him the “most experienced U.S. astronaut in history,” NASA spokesman Rob Navias said.

Now-retired astronaut Scott Kelly still holds the U.S. record for consecutive days in space (340 days), but Williams surpassed him in total time, thanks to his three long-term stays on the space station plus a shuttle flight in 2000.

Williams and his Russian crewmates, Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, touched down in the steppes of Kazakhstan just after sunrise (7:13 a.m. local time Sept. 7, 6:13 p.m. PT Sept. 6), nearly three and a half hours after leaving the station. NASA spokesman Dan Huot, who was reporting from the scene, said the trio’s Russian Soyuz capsule made a bull’s-eye landing.

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NASA gives go-ahead for Mars lander in 2018

An artist’s conception shows NASA’s InSight lander on Mars. The SEIS instrument is in the chamber shown to the left of the lander platform. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech)

NASA has approved plans to fix a flaw on its InSight lander in time for a launch to Mars in 2018.

The flaw involves a leak in a vacuum seal for one of the lander’s main scientific instruments, known as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure or SEIS. InSight had been scheduled for launch this year, but last December, NASA put off the launch because the leak couldn’t be fixed in time.

Today NASA said it would spend an extra $153.8 million, on top of the mission’s previously budgeted $675 million, to redesign the instrument and cover other costs of the two-year delay.

“The additional cost will not delay or cancel any current missions, though there may be fewer opportunities for new missions in future years, from fiscal years 2017 to 2020,” NASA said in a statement.

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Spacewalkers take on fix-up chores in orbit

Spacewalkers Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins make their way around the International Space Station as solar panels shimmer in the sunlight. (Credit: NASA TV)

NASA astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins ventured outside the International Space Station today for the second time in two weeks and worked their way down a long to-do list.

The top task was accomplished early: Williams used a power tool to retract the folding panels of a 44-foot-long thermal radiator that was no longer needed. The assembly, known as the Trailing Thermal Control Radiator, is now tucked away as a spare.

Williams also installed two enhanced high-definition television cameras that will provide sharper views of Earth and the space station, including the comings and goings of visiting cargo and crew vehicles. Meanwhile, Rubins inspected and tightened the bolts on a joint that enables one of the station’s solar arrays to rotate.

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NASA spotlights cloud app for citizen scientists

NASA’s GLOBE Observer app lets anyone become a citizen scientist by collecting observations of clouds. (Credit: NASA GLOBE Observer)

One of NASA’s longest-running citizen science programs isn’t just for kids anymore: A newly released app called GLOBE Observer can turn any smartphone user into a cloud researcher.

And we don’t mean “cloud” in the computing sense. A program called Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, or GLOBE, is looking for a wide range of cloud imagery that can feed into climate research.

“Clouds are one of the most important factors in understanding how climate is changing now, and how it’s going to change in the future,”  Holli Riebeek Kohl, NASA lead for the GLOBE Observer project, explained today in a news release.

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DNA sequenced in space for the first time

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins sequenced DNA using the MiniON device at lower right. (Credit: NASA)

NASA biologist-astronaut Kate Rubins performed the first DNA sequencing experiment in space over the weekend, using a miniaturized device that was delivered to the International Space Station just last month.

The palm-sized MiniON DNA sequencer, built by Oxford Nanopore Technologies, could eventually open the way for full-fledged experiments studying how space radiation might scramble the genes of earthly organisms. This time around, the experiment was aimed merely at finding out whether the device worked.

Rubins used the MiniON sequencer to analyze prepared DNA samples from a mouse, bacteria and a virus. The same analysis was done with equipment down on the ground, with the aim of reading out and matching up the chemical letters of genetic code – that is, adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine.

The outcome? In today’s status update, NASA reported that the experiment demonstrated for the first time that DNA sequencing could indeed be done in an orbiting spacecraft. That wasn’t a sure thing. Some researchers worried that air bubbles could have gummed up the works in zero-G.

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Astronaut breaks NASA record for time in space

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams shows off mission patches from his spaceflights. (Credit: NASA)

Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly may hold the U.S. record for most consecutive days in space, but he’s been surpassed by Jeff Williams, the International Space Station’s current commander, when it comes to total days in orbit.

Today Williams zoomed past Kelly’s 520-day cumulative record, and by the time his six-month stint on the space station ends on Sept. 6, he’ll have racked up 534 days in all.

Kelly called up his congratulations from Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.

“But I do have one question for you,” Kelly cracked, “and my question is, you got another 190 days in you?”

“One hundred and ninety days in me?” Williams replied. “That question is not for me. That’s for my wife.”

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Space station crew installs new front door

NASA’s Jeff Williams works on the space station’s International Docking Adapter. (Credit: NASA TV)

The International Space Station now has a door that will let crews float in from the commercial space taxis that SpaceX and Boeing are building, thanks to a nearly six-hour spacewalk.

NASA spacewalkers Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins installed the Boeing-built door, known as an International Docking Adapter or IDA, with an assist from the station’s robotic arm. This was the fourth spacewalk for Williams, and the first for Rubins.

The 5-foot-wide IDA was hooked up to one of the ports on the station’s Harmony module – a port that was originally designed for use by the now-retired space shuttle fleet. Analogous to an electrical-plug adapter, the IDA fits over the port to provide a standard interface for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, Boeing’s CST-100 Starlifter, and potentially other spacecraft including Russia’s Soyuz capsule.

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