posted April 16, 2010 10:40 PM         

100,000+ orbits around the earth. More than 570,000 pictures have been taken of about 29,000 celestial objects. The data transmissions sent back from Hubble add up to almost 39 trillion bytes - twice as much as all the data contained in all the books in the Library of Congress.
Facts/findings/trivia
Due to budget restraints Space Exploration is being 'downsized' I do not know specifically how Hubble or any other NASA launched gear will be financed. One would imagine that they will be maintained, it just makes sense.
I did hear that the last Shuttle will be in Sept.

Some to Hubble

posted April 16, 2010 10:41 PM         

*

posted April 16, 2010 11:52 PM         

more hubble luv

angel nebula

posted April 17, 2010 10:23 PM         

Wanted to add that I am hearing about Mars missions.
I thought Mars had been put on the back burner,:-) and the NASA mars website tells us that they were testing some radar equipment in CA.

quote:

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April 2010 testing for a radar that will serve during the next landing on Mars used prescribed descent paths flown by a helicopter carrying an engineering test model of the landing radar for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory.

The descents at different angles and from different heights simulated paths associated with specific candidate landing sites for the mission. The Mars Science Laboratory mission, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, is in assembly and testing for launch in autumn 2011 and delivering a rover named Curiosity to Mars in summer 2012.

Wolfe Air Aviation, of Pasadena, Calif., provided the helicopter and flight services for the testing by a team of JPL engineers in flights near Lancaster, Calif., and other locations. This image from April 9, 2010, shows the test radar affixed to a gimbal mounting at the front of the helicopter, which is more often used for aerial photography.

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"This spring, engineers are testing a radar system that will serve during the next landing on Mars.

Recent tests included some near Lancaster, Calif., against a backdrop of blooming California poppy fields. In those tests, a helicopter carried an engineering test model of the landing radar for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on prescribed descent paths. The descents at different angles and from different heights simulated paths associated with specific candidate sites for the mission.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA, is in its assembly and testing phase, in advance of a launch in autumn 2011 and delivery of a rover named Curiosity to Mars in summer 2012.

During the final stage of the spacecraft's arrival at Mars in 2012, a rocket-powered descent stage will lower the rover on a tether directly to the ground. This rover is too big for the airbag-cushioned landing method used by NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997 and Mars Exploration Rover landings in 2004.

posted April 18, 2010 10:47 AM         

Space Junk Or, the PC friendly term Orbital debris

• The objects can be as big as a defunct satellite, but -- traveling at speeds of 17,500 miles an hour or more -- even a paint flake can put a chink in a space shuttle window, as happened on one mission.
  
• The amount of junk in low Earth orbit -- where the shuttle and the space station travel -- has increased 60 percent since 2006, according to NASA.
  
• the United States and other countries have begun to focus more on the issue of space junk, designing satellites that deorbit themselves after they finish their jobs and other techniques to reduce debris.
  
• As for the space station itself, its trash is loaded into the Russian Progress vehicles, which ferry supplies up. After the Progress is filled with junk -- something NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries likened to "cramming your suitcase full of everything you want to take with you" -- it is sent hurtling toward Earth, where much of it burns up in the atmosphere.
  
• When Discovery returns to Earth on Sunday, it will be carting 20,000 pounds of trash and equipment.
  
• Now, new binding international agreements are needed to bar anti-satellite tests like the one China did...[last year China destroyed a defunct satellite as a test of anti-satellite military capability]
  

quote:

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In higher orbits, such as those for satellites, the debris is going even faster, Heelis pointed out. And it's farther from Earth, so it takes longer to be destroyed -- decades or centuries instead of years.

"Space is large, so the chances of [debris] hitting you are very small," Heelis said. "But if it does hit you, the consequences are very large."

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posted April 24, 2010 06:11 PM         

on MSNBC today to celebrate hubble's 20th anniversary..i am useless bringing the pics but here's the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36698695/ns/technology_and_science-picture_stories/?GT1=4 3001

the picto-story begins with this...