Astronomy Picture of the Day
 A beautiful, reddened
 When do cloud bottoms appear like bubbles?
 An Unusual Globule in IC 1396
 Why is Saturn partly blue?
 Clouds and Crosses over Haleakala
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The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.
The United States was in a prime orbital position and time of day to view the eclipse on April 15, 2014. Depending on local weather conditions, the public got a spectacular view looking into the sky as the moon's appearance changed from bright orange to blood red to dark brown and perhaps gray. The eclipse is a phenomenon that occurs when the Earth, moon and sun are in perfect alignment, blanketing the moon in the Earth's shadow. The United States, in its entirety, will not be able to witness a full lunar eclipse again until 2019. This image was taken in San Jose, Calif.
Image Credit: NASA Ames Research Center/Brian Day
NASA has built and is sending a set of high-tech legs up to the International Space Station for Robonaut 2 (R2), the station's robotic crewmember. The new legs are scheduled to launch on the SpaceX-3 commercial cargo flight to the International Space Station, scheduled to launch Monday, April 14 at 4:58 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
These new legs, funded by NASA's Human Exploration and Operations and Space Technology mission directorates, will provide R2 the mobility it needs to help with regular and repetitive tasks inside and outside the space station. The goal is to free up the crew for more critical work, including scientific research.
Once the legs are attached to the R2 torso, the robot will have a fully extended leg span of nine feet, giving it great flexibility for movement around the space station. Each leg has seven joints and a device on what would be the foot, called an "end effector," which allows the robot to take advantage of handrails and sockets inside and outside the station. A vision system for the end effectors also will be used to verify and eventually automate each limb's approach and grasp.
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Image Credit: NASA
The International Space Station's Vegetable Production System ("Veggie") experiment is on display in the News Center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Veggie is a new investigation with "edible results" heading to the space station. Veggie is a deployable plant growth unit capable of producing salad-type crops to provide the crew with appetizing, nutritious and safe fresh food and support crew relaxation and recreation. It will serve as a new space station facility as well and will provide a venue for future plant growth research.
To the right of the Veggie experiment is a model of the Space Launch System (SLS), the nation's next heavy-lift launch vehicle. NASA is developing the SLS and Orion spacecraft to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, with the flexibility to launch spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, including to an asteroid and Mars.
The Veggie experiment is aboard SpaceX's Dragon cargo spacecraft, scheduled to launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. at 4:58 p.m. EDT on Monday, April 14, 2014. The SpaceX-3 mission is carrying almost 2.5 tons of supplies, technology and science experiments and is the third of 12 flights contracted by NASA to resupply the orbiting laboratory.
Read more about cargo launching to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX-3:
> SpaceX’s Dragon Headed to Space Station to Create Astronaut Farmers
> CASIS-Sponsored Research Heads to Space Station Aboard SpaceX-3
> International Space Station to Beam Video via Laser Back to Earth
> NASA's Latest Smartphone Satellite Ready for Launch
Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Mission Operations Director Paul Hill talks to the media as NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa visit Mission Control in the newly renovated and historic White Flight Control Room, which will be used to support NASA’s Orion spacecraft. The mission patches that adorn the walls reflect the control room's previous use in the Space Shuttle Program.
Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations in deep space, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), planned for December 2014, will be Orion's first mission. EFT-1 will send an uncrewed spacecraft 3,600 miles above the Earth for a two-orbit flight that will give engineers the chance to verify its design and test some of the systems most critical for the safety of the astronauts who will fly on it in the future. After traveling 15 times farther into space than the International Space Station, Orion will return to Earth at speeds near 20,000 mph, generating temperatures of up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
Image Credit: NASA
NASA and Boeing engineers are inspecting and preparing one of the largest composite rocket propellant tanks ever manufactured for testing. The composite cryotank is part of NASA’s Game Changing Development Program and Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA's future missions. NASA focused on this technology because composite tanks promise a 30 percent weight reduction and a 25 percent cost savings over the best metal tanks used today. The outer shell of the 18-foot-diameter (5.5-meter) cryotank is the same size as propellant tanks used on today’s full-size rockets.
The tank was manufactured at the Boeing Developmental Center in Tukwila, Wash., and like artists, the team demonstrated their passion and commitment by signing their work. The silver signatures of the NASA and Boeing team members are visible on the black dome end of the tank. NASA’s Super Guppy delivered the tank in March 2014 to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and the Kmag, a 96-wheeled cargo truck, transported the tank to a Marshall Center test area. The 28,000-gallons (105.992- liter) tank will be insulated and placed in a test stand where it will be loaded with liquid hydrogen cooled to extremely cold, or cryogenic temperatures. The orange ends of the tank are made of metal and will attach to the test stand so that structural loads can be applied similar to those the tank would experience during a rocket launch. This advanced composite cryotank could benefit many of NASA’s deep space exploration spacecraft including NASA's Space Launch System, the largest most powerful rocket ever built.
Image Credit: NASA/MSFC/Fred Deaton
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