What Tim Peake says he’s missing most about Earth

Peake, who is due to return to Earth on June 18, has revealed he is looking forward to “private time” with his family, fresh air – oh, and the feeling of rain splashing on his face. “This is going to sound truly remarkable but I most miss the rain,” said the astronaut. “Perhaps that’s because I haven’t had a shower for six months. The feeling of nice cold drizzle on my face right now actually sounds blissful.”
Hmmmmm. Yeah, blissful isn’t exactly how we’d describe the downpours we’ve been having here lately…  Peake also described the highlight of his six month mission – the “truly incredible” space walk he made on January 15. And he said the experience, shared with American colleague Tim Kopra, was one he will “cherish forever”. The two astronauts stepped outside the International Space Station (ISS) to replace a faulty electrical component and install cabling.
Unexpectedly they were given 10 minutes of free time, waiting for the sun to set behind planet Earth before it was safe to approach the solar arrays.  Speaking to journalists from the ISS, Peake said: “Mission control in Houston told us that we had 10 minutes to hang out, take photographs and wait for the sun to set. That is unheard of on a space walk when normally every minute is accounted for.
“That was truly incredible, just to be able to explore that part of the space station and look down on planet Earth, and also look behind me and look out into the darkness and the vastness of space while outside the space station. I think that really is a moment I will cherish forever.”

Uncertain Future for Arecibo Telescope Tucked into a sinkhole in the Puerto Rican jungle, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope scans the skies for signs of distant galaxies, elusive gravitational waves, and the murmurs of extraterrestrial civilizations nearly 24 hours a day. For more than a half-century, whether those waves traveled to Earth from the far reaches of our universe or much closer to home, the Arecibo Observatory has been there to catch them. But the enormous telescope, with a dish that stretches 1,000 feet across, may not be around for much longer. On May 23, the National Science Foundation, which funds the majority of Arecibo’s annual $12 million budget, published a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement related to the observatory’s future. The most extreme option, which could include explosively demolishing the giant dish, might affect such things as ground water, air quality, and ecosystems – thus the importance of studying the environmental impact of potential futures, especially ones that involve shutting the telescope’s eyes.(Source: Phenomena)

Will Dawn Visit a Third Object in the Asteroid Belt? NASA is considering sending the Dawn spacecraft to a third asteroid after it finishes its mission at the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn, which visited the asteroid Vesta before putting itself into orbit around Ceres, was expected to run out of fuel for its novel ion propulsion system by the end of this year. The spacecraft had used extra propellant for thruster burns to orientate itself in space after problems with its reaction wheels prompted flight controllers to shut down the system. The wheels’ spin naturally generates momentum to point the spacecraft without using fuel. Upon arrival at Ceres in March 2015, flight controllers turned Dawn’s reaction wheels back on and found the system operational. “They worked great. There’s been no other anomalies in that particular area for Dawn,” NASA planetary science chief Jim Green told a science advisory committee during a webcast meeting this week. Engineers then reassessed how much xenon propellant Dawn has left for science operations. “It turns out it is actually pretty significant,” Green said. With enough fuel for at least another year of operations, NASA asked the Dawn team to submit a proposal for an extended mission. Green declined to elaborate on an earlier discussion about options for Dawn, including sending the probe to visit another body in the main asteroid belt. “They have had a variety of things they’ve discussed, and because it’s a proposal I’m not at liberty to talk about it. But once again, an exciting mission,” Green said. In an email, Dawn lead scientist Christopher Russell told DNews, “Discussion of this topic is premature. We have only one approved continued operation plan and that is to That may change before the end of September.”An extended mission review is underway,” Green told the advisory group. “The panels have met and final deliberations are not quite done yet. We’ll announce what NASA’s decision is on that in the August-September time frame.”

Russian Ullage Rocket Engine Explodes in Space The U.S. Joint Space Operations Center (JspOC), which tracks space debris, has reported that a Russian Ullage rocket motor exploded in space at approximately 5:20 a.m. EDT (9:20 GMT) on Wednesday, June 1. According to a statement issued by JspOC, the motor was orbiting the Earth in a highly elliptical orbit and suffered a break-up—disintegrating into at least 20 pieces. The destroyed Ullage motor appears to be a part of a Blok DM-2 upper stage used on a Proton-M rocket that was launched in December 2008. The mission took to the skies from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and successfully delivered a trio of GLONASS navigation satellites into orbit. The cause of the on-orbit explosion is still unknown, but most probably, it was triggered by the mixing of hypergolic propellants. It could also be due to a collision in space; however, JspOC, relying on initial estimates, has excluded that as a possibility. Read more at: Spaceflight Insider How Blue Origin’s New Shepard will Keep Passengers Safe in Case of a Crash Blue Origin will intentionally crash-land its New Shepard rocket during an upcoming test flight, to see if the vehicle can still keep people safe when its parachutes don’t work. The company claims anyone aboard the spacecraft should be fine if the parachutes fail. But for further protection, New Shepard has other failsafes that will help keep people alive during a botched landing, according to a new email from CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos claimed that these safety features will be tested out on the next test flight, along with the failed parachutes. “We’re planning to demonstrate the redundancies built into the capsule on this re-flight of the [New Shepard] vehicle,” wrote Bezos in an email. Read more at: Verge Home Sweet Habitat: Students Help NASA Design Mars Spacecraft Living Quarters Building rocket ships out of cardboard boxes is a standard make-believe activity. But a class of Pratt Institute design students in New York City have taken it to the next level. In a partnership with NASA 19 students designed and built scale models of Mars spacecraft interiors over the course of a school year and presented the final products to a NASA representative on May 5. The design and architecture students brought a human-focused eye to their designs, striving to create an home that was both fun and functional for long hauls to and from the Red Planet. The project may sound like a flight of fancy, but Robert Howard, Jr., manager of NASA Johnson Space Center’s Habitability Design Center, stresses that these university projects provide out-of-the-box insight into real design problems the space agency faces—none of which have a single correct answer. Read more at: Scientific American DHL and Airbus Defence and Space Support Astrobotic to Develop Lunar Delivery Service Astrobotic, which is building a service to make the Moon accessible to the world, today announces that DHL and Airbus Defence and Space are supporting Astrobotic to develop its lunar payload delivery service. Deutsche Post DHL Group, the world’s leading mail and logistics company, will become the “Official Logistics Provider for Astrobotic’s First Mission to the Moon.” DHL will provide logistics services for Astrobotic’s spacecraft and its customer payloads, making sure that all materials for the new lunar lander as well as the ‘space freight’ will arrive safe and on time to begin their journey to the Moon. “DHL has a proud history of connecting its customers to the world. Moon exploration is also a theme that has a special historical significance for us – DHL was founded in 1969, the year of the first moon landing. Today, we are excited to be embarking upon this incredible venture into the next era of logistics – beyond Earth and to the Moon. Read more at: Spaceref India’s Mini Space Shuttle to Blast Off on Test Run India was making final preparations Sunday for the launch of its first model space shuttle, as it bids to join the race to one day make rockets as reusable as airplanes. India’s seven-metre (23-foot) shuttle is expected to blast off from a southeastern space port on Monday, in a crucial step to eventually developing a full-scale, reusable one to send up satellites in the future. India’s space agency director Devi Prasad Karnik told AFP that the test flight was set to occur “any time during the launch window between 7am (0130 GMT) and 11am (0530 GMT), depending upon wind and weather conditions”. The scale-model shuttle will be propelled 70 kilometres into the atmosphere using a 15-tonne rocket before splashing down 10 minutes later into the Bay of Bengal, some 500 kilometres from the Sriharikota space port. Read more at: Phys.org Europe’s Copernicus Enters Hunt for Missing EgyptAir Flight The European Space Agency on May 20 produced a radar satellite image of a 2-kilometer-long oil slick in the eastern Mediterranean Sea that ESA officials say could be from the missing EgyptAir MS804, which disappeared on May 19. Egyptian military authorities on May 20 said they had found what they believed to be pieces of the plane. ESA said it had provided investigating authorities with the image, taken at 16h GMT May 19. The image, from the Sentinel-1A radar Earth observation satellite, was shot in extra-wide swath mode of 400 kilometers in width, with horizontal polarization. The slick is located at 33°32′ N / 29°13′ E, or some  40 kilometers southeast of the location of the aircraft after its last signal. Read more at: SpaceNews China Reveals Design for Planned Tiangong-3 Space Station The China National Space Administration (CNSA) presented several slides of the design of its future space station, called Tiangong 3—meaning “Heavenly Palace” in Chinese. The station is expected to be built sometime between 2018 and 2022. According to the released slides, the station’s core module, “Tianhe 1” (“galaxy”), will include a laboratory with integrated modular racks for storing scientific equipment. It will also have five docking ports and a robotic arm. With a mass of about 24 tons (22 metric tons), this module will measure some 59 feet (18.1 meters) in length and 14 feet (4.2 meters) in diameter. Tianhe 1 is expected to launch sometime in 2018, most likely atop a Long March 5 booster, and will serve as a docking hub for future modules and resupply spacecraft. Tiangong 3 will also have two science modules: “Wengtian” and “Mengtian“. These modules are planned to be used for performing scientific research in microgravity. Read more at: Spaceflight Insider Lockheed Martin Wants to Send Humans to Mars in 12 Years Before our species set foot on the moon, we orbited it first. The same will probably be true for Mars, and on Wednesday, Lockheed Martin plans to unveil its vision for a spacecraft that could make it happen. The “Mars Base Camp,” as the company is calling it, would set up a laboratory, staffed by 6 astronauts, in Mars orbit in 2028. Up to now, NASA has outlined the first few steps to Mars. It’s building a heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), and working with Lockheed to build the Orion crew capsule. The rocket and capsule will launch for the first time, uncrewed, in 2018, and then in 2023 they’ll carry astronauts into deep space, just beyond the moon, for the first time ever. But after the moon it’s still a very long way to Mars, filled with unknowns, and then once you get to Mars, landing is a whole new challenge. This is where NASA’s plans get particularly vague. Read more at: Popsci International Space Station Crew Deploys Cubesats Another round of CubeSats, including eight Planet Lab Dove Satellites, were deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) by the Expedition 47 crew. A total of 17 tiny spacecraft were deployed from NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) at the end of the Japanese Remote Manipulator System. Starting late last week, crew members inserted the NRCSD inside the Japanese Kibo module’s airlock and attached it to the Multi-Purpose Experiment Platform (MPEP). Over the weekend, the airlock was sealed and leak checks performed before the Japanese robotic arm grappled the MPEP and positioned it at the deployment location. “Successful deployment this morning,” the official twitter account for NanoRacks read May 16. The first deployment time was at 5:05 a.m. CDT (10:05 GMT) Monday morning, while the second was at 9:40 a.m. (14:40 GMT) and included the 100th CubeSat deployed by the NRCSD system. Read more at: Spaceflight Insider When CubeSats are Too Big Over the last several years, CubeSats have gone mainstream. Once dismissed as little more than toys—or, worse, debris—these small spacecraft are finding widespread acceptance as their capabilities grow. Companies like Planet Labs and Spire are using them to develop constellations of satellites to collect images and other data about the Earth, raising hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment to further their plans. An upcoming study by the National Academies is expected to examine how NASA and other agencies can use CubeSats to support a wide range of science investigations. Part of that growing interest in CubeSats is because CubeSats themselves have grown. Introduced as cubes 10 centimeters on a side and weighing about one kilogram, spacecraft developers have turned these standalone cubes into larger spacecraft. Today, 3U CubeSats—three cubes combined to form a spacecraft about 30 by 10 by 10 centimeters—are commonplace, while other work on 6U, 12U, and even larger spacecraft. Read more at: Space Review Stratobus: The Spy Blimp-Satellite of the Future Used for Snooping If you thought surveillance drones were unnerving, a French-Italian aerospace company is now producing an unmanned blimp to monitor the ground from space. One good thing can be said for government-operated spy UAVs: they have to land occasionally. But Thales Alenia Space, an aerospace manufacturer, is hoping to take the utility of a Predator drone and apply it to a long-lasting dirigible. They call it a Stratobus, and it’s a five-ton solar-powered inflatable airship that can remain aloft in the Earth’s upper atmosphere for up five years at a time. “Stratobus is midway between a drone and a satellite, making a low-cost product offering permanent regional coverage and ideally complementing satellite solutions,” company project manager Jean-Philippe Chessel said. Read more at: Space Daily Brilliant Fireball Seen Over Northeast US Coast In the early hours this morning, people that were awake and looking up at the sky in the northeastern United States and far eastern Canada were treated to a magnificent display as a meteorite burned up in the atmosphere, brightening the entire sky for a second as it went. The American Meteor Society, which reported the event and compiled images and videos taken by night owls and people lucky enough to have dash cams or web cams pointing in the right direction at the right time. Over 450 people sent in reports from across the region, with many describing the experience as incredible. Read more at: Popsci Huge 400-foot Tsunamis Once Washed Over Mars Mars is a barren, desert planet today, but some 3.4 billion years ago it hosted a mammoth northern ocean. Now scientists have uncovered evidence that this ancient Martian ocean would also have been the premiere place in the solar system to hang ten — that is, if you were a surfer with a death wish. The waves on Mars would have given a whole new definition to the idea of big wave surfing. According to calculations, Martian waves may have reached 400 feet in height, absolutely crushing shorelines and spreading debris and sediment for hundreds of miles inland. The discovery could help to explain why scientists have had trouble finding evidence of a coastline in the geology of modern Mars. The coastline got obliterated by mega-waves. “Imagine this enormous red wave coming towards you, up to [400 feet] high,” said Alexis Rodriguez, lead researcher on the study, to Nature. “It would have been pretty spectacular.” Read more at: MNN

Name A Mars Crater For Father’s Day

For years, space mission rover drivers have named craters on Mars and Apollo astronauts have named landing site landmarks on their Moon missions.Now it’s your turn to help create the first crowdsourced Mars map.



Complete with names for all of the approximately 500,000 largest, still unnamed craters on Mars! You can also help name the map grid rectangles of all the Districts and Provinces in our address system–the first ever address system for Mars.

All existing Mars crater names, including IAU names, have been grandfathered into the Uwingu Mars map. Prices for newly named small craters begin at just five dollars, and increase with crater size. Give it a try!

When you name and purchase a Mars Crater, you will be able to download a .png image file of the certificate immediately – either from the confirmation email or through your order history when you are logged into your account. You can then print it out yourself or send it out for printing.

You can print it as many times as you would like. Your crater name, submitted by information and citation will also be added to the Mars Crater Map and visible to anyone viewing the map on uwingu.com.

Each feature named helps fuel The Uwingu Fund, providing grants to space researchers, educators, and entrepreneurs in this time of government cutbacks. Hurry, there are billions of people on Earth–far more than the number of available Martian craters!

About The Promotion

Today through June 16th, Uwingu is offering to give the first 100,000 people who sign up for our free, monthly newsletter, a completely free gift certificate to name a crater on our public engagement Mars map in honor of a dad.

Uwingu’s Mars Map will be carried to Mars aboard both the first Mars One robotic lander and also on the Time Capsule to Mars Project. Every crater named for a dad before Father’s Day on June 19th comes with a commemorative Father’s Day 2016 naming certificate emailed to the buyer. Join our newsletter HERE so you get the free gift code!

Said Uwingu’s founder and CEO, planetary scientist Dr. Alan Stern, “Never before has anything like this been done to honor dads on Father’s Day. Just join our newsletter list by June 16th and give dad something he will never forget, something truly novel, and out of this world.

We look forward to smashing all records for the number of named craters on any Mars map through this Father’s Day offer, and we hope you’ll take part for the dad in your life!!” Source: Name a Mars Crater for Father’s Day