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An image taken from the Phoenix Lander's Surface Stereo Imager shows the results of the day's digging.  (Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/Texas A&M)
Five German satellites are now in orbit; the ISS had to lower in orbit to avoid some Russian space junk; and the Phoenix Mars lander continues its success on the Red Planet

Five German RapidEye land remote sensing satellites have successfully launched into orbit aboard a Dnepr rocket.  The satellites will be used for agricultural imaging and started communicating with ground stations within two hours.  RapidEye plans on activating and testing its technology for the next couple of weeks before making it fully operational.

Each satellite weights 330 pounds and will spend seven years orbiting Earth while capturing images of up to 1.5 million square miles of land per day.  They'll fly in orbit about 19 minutes travel time in between one another, so it's possible certain areas will be revisited.

Astronauts stationed aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were forced to fire booster rockets to temporarily lower the ISS's orbit, as a piece of Russian space debris came within a mile of the floating space laboratory.  The debris were bits of the Russian Cosmos-2421 surveillance satellite that was launched in 2006 so Russia would be able to monitor naval vessels in the Pacific Ocean.  It was self-destructed in the spring time and broke apart twice before floating through space.  

Using the boosters aboard the European Space Agency Automated Transfer Vehicle, the five-minute process slowed the speed of the ISS by about 2 m.p.h., which helped lower it by a mile.  The ESA hoped to use the ATV for a series of controlled tests before sending it back to Earth somewhere over the south Pacific Ocean.

This is the first time in five years booster rockets had to be fired to help avoid space debris.  Boosters traditionally are fired to help keep the ISS in proper position and away from Earth's atmosphere, which could change the altitude of the ISS by 100 to 300 feet in 24 hours.

The solar-powered Phoenix Mars Lander successfully sent a postcard to Earth that had images of the location where it is digging into the Martian trying to collect as much data as possible before its mission extension ends at the end of September.  Researchers have submitted a second extension that would run through mid-November, assuming the Phoenix lander is able to survive until then.

NASA and University of Arizona researchers were ecstatic when the probe dug beneath the Martian surface to find Martian ice.

For last month's international space updates refer here [1] [2] [3].

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watch out.....
By Seemonkeyscanfly on 9/2/2008 10:03:31 AM , Rating: 2
This is the first time in five years booster rockets had to be fired to help avoid space debris.

As I understand it, there is suppose to be tons of space junk... broken satellites and whatever else floating around orbiting the Earth. What they odds of gathering the floating junk and attempting to re-use or build something new with the space junk? Building it in space so to save money on flying it back into space. Of course I do not know what it cost per hour to keep a person in space....flying something new up into space may still be much cheaper then re-building old equipment.




RE: watch out.....
By Ferentz on 9/2/2008 11:06:25 AM , Rating: 2
I think it's much more cheaper doing metalurgy and other stuff on earth reagardless on weight isues and much others than trying to recycle in space alltough... who knows? Maybe one day mankind will recycle even in space when the necesity will come.


RE: watch out.....
By greenchasch on 9/2/2008 11:08:54 AM , Rating: 2
There was a proposal like 15 years ago for the Space Shuttle to spend just a little extra fuel and boost its main tank high enough to leave it in orbit.

When several were up there, a separate mission could collect them all up, and weld them into a very spacious ultra-cheap space station.

I don't know what ever came of that plan.


RE: watch out.....
By grath on 9/2/2008 11:42:30 PM , Rating: 2
Not only is it relatively easy to boost the external tank to orbit, NASA used to claim they would be glad to deliver the tank in orbit, free of charge even, to any craft or facility capable of handling it it safely, i.e. avoiding uncontrolled reentry over land, and provided that the delivery not impact the shuttles mission profile.

Obviously nobody took them up on the offer. Even if there was serious interest, an external tank would only be of real use if it had a preinstalled docking or berthing port, as installing such a port on-orbit would be prohibitively expensive and the result certainly couldnt be considered man-rated.

Now that Project Constellation has a chance to further engineer the shuttle derived hardware they are using for the Ares class launch vehicles, perhaps they will see the wisdom of enabling "post-consumer" use of expended stages by designing in a usable and modular docking port, such as the Common Berthing Mechanism that some of the ISS uses. The Ares I upper stage and Ares V first stage would both provide decently sized pressure vessels that could be left in low orbit, as would the Earth Departure Stage that ends up in lunar orbit.

Recycling of space junk and derelict satellites is another interesting topic. There have been a number of proposals for launching unmanned refuelling and servicing tugs to GEO where most communications satellites run out of fuel well before they stop functioning, but instead the last of the fuel is used to move into a graveyard orbit to stay out of the way of its replacements, as if youre going to pay to launch a refuelling mission you might as well just launch a new satellite.

The long term is another case however. There will come a point where we have established enough human presence in space that there will not only be a market for recovered hardware, but also the resources, manpower, and facilities to properly process it.


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