Curiosity. It seems that all the media activities of NASA, at least for the remainder of this year, will have something to do with this robotic probe, and no wonder, since the mission has been a success. In the last hours are no new developments, particularly related to high-resolution images sent to our planet and its contents. And there have been some "frivolous", probably designed to attract younger people, such as the transmission from Mars for the song "Reach for the Stars" by Will.i.am.
As stated in the title of this short summary, the Curiosity robot never rests. Since arriving at Mars has continued to give satisfaction to the U.S. space agency, without encountering major problems or setbacks. In recent days this robot has transmitted to Earth high resolution images of the Martian surface, with a level of detail well enough to reveal, among other things, the presence of hydrated minerals.
On August 23, when Curiosity took the now famous image of the area southwest of descent point to calibrate their cameras all knew that what we were seeing in the next few days would be awesome. And the robot will not let us down. The photograph below, which shows the aspect of the base of Mount Sharp, is simply spectacular. They appreciate a disparate series of rows around the base of this mountain that rises in Gale crater, Curiosity site that dropped on August 6.
One of the last images received, taken with the camera and a telephoto MastCam 100 mm, showing what could be a geological unconformity on the slopes of Mount Sharp. This is an area where mineral deposits are observed that only form in the presence of water, while the highest areas lacking these elements. Sediments are clearly at a different angle to those found below, something common in places with volcanic or tectonic activity.
Obviously, NASA needs support and funds to operate, and that requires them to carry out also some actions that do not fall precisely within what one might consider a "huge science forward." For example, in what is recognized as an attempt to attract younger look to the work of NASA and its missions, on Tuesday issued Curiosity-broadcast live from Mars-the song "Reach for the Stars" the American musician Grammy award winner will.i.am. During transmission, the team responsible for this mission went into a trance orgasmic set, with her arms raised and eyes glazed.
The song arranged especially for this event, whose letter says "I know Mars could be away but love is not so far away", was interpreted by an orchestra of over forty instruments, since the artist "did not want another song made on a computer "was first transmitted to Earth from Mars. "I wanted to show the human collaboration with an orchestra there to have something that would last over time, that would be appreciated by different cultures, which did not have the rhythm of hip hop or dance music," he said.
As you can see, NASA must balance between the scientific side of this mission, which cost about 2,500 million, and the related marketing, the funds necessary to continue to flow. Soon we will have news, surely more shocking photographs to see before the Curiosity begins to scroll to the slopes of Mount Sharp, site that will address during the coming weeks and months.
The drone experimental X-51A WaveRider, a hypersonic aircraft capable of flying over the Pacific Ocean some 5,793 kilometers per hour, was tested today by the Pentagon on a flight "key" to the development of its technology, confirmed a source of Department of Defense.
From a hangar at Edwards Air Force U.S. in the Mojave Desert (California), a team of aerospace engineers tuned the device, which could cover the distance between New York and London in less than an hour.
The project, developed by the U.S. space agency (NASA) and the Agency Advanced Research Projects U.S. Defense (DARPA), was tested by anchoring the X-51A Waverider to the wing of a former B-52 bomber. The X-51A WaveRider should have flown at hypersonic speed for 300 seconds to dive later in the Pacific Ocean.
Although the same sources were unable to provide information on the results obtained, have been successfully completed, the ship should have been destroyed during testing, making it impossible to recover, but the engineers could use all the data recorded during the flight to the development of hypersonic technology in military applications.
The X51A test flight was the third experiment of a program that began in 2004. The first Waverider, built by Boeing, was tested in May 2010 at 3,500 kilometers per hour for 143 seconds, before a technical failure put an end to the test ahead of time, and the second, who was executed in June 2011 and also ended earlier than expected but it did generate concrete data.
The Air Force plans to develop and use technology to move hypersonic missiles or aircraft anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes instead of hours, in order not to let the enemy reaction time. Besides the speed, the aircraft will fly at high altitude hypersonic away from enemy fire or a missile. NASA and the Pentagon is funding three national centers in the country to study the hypersonic flight.
The WaveRider program will cost $ 140 million as estimated by the military development website, Globalsecurity.com.
In less than two weeks for the company to launch the SpaceX Dragon private spacecraft and docking with the ISS. A milestone marking the start of a new space age to which NASA has given the nod.
Dragon is a capsule developed by the company SpaceX. Its mission is to resupply cargo to the station with the "particularity" that is a commercial operator which will take place. Therefore, and successfully accomplish the mission, Dragon is the first private spacecraft to dock with the ISS.
The flight of the capsule will be a demonstration marking the future of a new era in space travel. The same NASA (which funds part of the project) is very interested in this type of space transportation actually confirmed in a private sector in both the cargo and crew on the next step
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If Dragon is developed by a private company and manages the cargo safely, the next level is intended to assess the voyage with astronauts and crew.
With this "shipment" would end the trial initiated by SpaceX in December 2010, when it launched a capsule that remained near the ISS and then came down to Earth safely.
The flight of the capsule will be the April 30 (16:22 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, and will be marked first by a low-flying 2 km below the ISS. That will be the time to approve or validate your flight system for the subsequent coupling. There will even be a flight simulation possible abortion of the mission in anticipation of avoiding a serious accident collision.
Once this test, the capsule will dock making history before returning to Earth and dropped into the ocean.
We need sources of clean, renewable energy, and scientists have set their sights on solar energy. A new approach, called SPS-ALPHA, gives a new twist on power generation in space, proposing to construct a platform arbitrarily large, curved, capable of generating tens of megawatts and send them to Earth as microwaves. The project has the support of NASA, but some doubt that it is possible to build it in the near future.
Modern society relies heavily on the availability of enormous amounts of energy . Throughout the day we use different forms of energy electricity but mainly to work, move, inform, communicate, feed us and make our homes a more comfortable. However, energy is an expensive, limited and often, their generation is an attack on the integrity of the environment. Today no one disputes it's crazy to continue burning fossil fuels to meet energy demand, and we know that that source was exhausted within a relatively short time. In this scenario, is working to develop alternative energy sources, which have a low impact on the environment and is not exhausted in the near future. The wind and solar power are two of the systems in which more work has been done and some countries like Spain have invested heavily in solar power generation by huge "farms collector of energy.
However, some dream of bringing these collectors into space, where their spoils the landscape installation does not interfere with agriculture and, above all, the amount of solar energy incident on the PV panels is much higher. The idea is not new , and is to bring energy collectors out of the atmosphere, produce electricity, sent to Earth by a narrow beam of microwave and convert it back into electricity by converting plant installed at the surface. Now a group of scientists is evaluating a new twist on this system, proposing the construction of SPS-ALPHA, a gigantic, modular system of mirrors that concentrate sunlight on photovoltaic collectors so that the amount of electrical energy that can generate much higher. These stations would have a conical shape, would be thousands of miles of land area, and be able to generate tens of thousands of megawatts. The project was presented by John Mankins, CEO of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions and has received recognition from NASA.
Although the idea is very good and could provide a virtually inexhaustible energy source, the costs involved in building and launching a satellite of this kind are certainly outside the budget of any business today. We are talking about taking space solar cells and mirrors to build some sort three-dimensional parabolic larger than anything we've put into orbit, where each piece of this mechano weighs between 100 and 200 kilograms. The technology available today allows us to put objects into orbit, relatively small-at a cost close to $ 10 000 per kilogram, so the number of rocket launches required to build one of these stations would be very large, and possibly the risks and related costs would not allow, with current technology, we can put in place something like the SPS-ALPHA. In the future, perhaps the space near Earth is full of power generating stations. But now a lot (but a lot!) Cheaper to build solar power plants on the earth's surface.
A couple of days back we talked about one of the research of MIT in the field of robotics in working in developing micro-robots that were assembled together to form any type of object, for example, replacing a piece that had to be replaced on a machine (similar to a job that was being developed at NASA for the ISS to manufacture parts with 3D printers ). Combining robotics and 3D printing, a team of MIT's CSAIL (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) is working on an interesting project to democratize access to robotics to facilitate the construction of robots using parts made with 3D printers .
The project has funding of $ 10 million from the National Science Foundation and has a term of 5 years development, aims to develop a technology that makes possible any person, to design, customize and print pieces a robot without the need for complex systems design, just a desktop computer.
The idea is to eliminate MIT arduous process of designing and manufacturing the components of a robot's body, reducing development time and, of course, focusing efforts on the software and hardware robot controller (could be an interesting alternative to systems development as Nao ). What would the process? The user would have available a desktop application that would have a number of libraries with robot functionalities and components (processors, machine vision systems, physical structure, etc.) the user will use to design and customize it to your taste. Once the design phase, you get the CAD files that are required for an establishment where manufacture 3D printed parts for later assembly, in addition to buying the necessary electronics. Once you have all the components only have to assemble and record the software on the robot.
Although it may seem simple, the project for nothing is as it involves 3D modeling, development of functional libraries or developing a programming framework, thus providing the user (whether professional, amateur or a student of engineering or secondary a) a single work environment and to obtain a product out quickly.
