Planet hunter forced to nap
Russian ship docks at ISS
WASHINGTON, July 10, (Agencies): NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope is almost out of fuel and has been forced to take a nap.
Flight controllers placed the planethunting spacecraft into hibernation last week to save energy. It will remain asleep until early August, when controllers attempt to send down the data collected before observations were interrupted.
Kepler has been searching for planets outside our solar system for nearly a decade. Considered the pioneer of planet hunting, it’s discovered nearly 3,000 confirmed worlds and as many potential candidates.
Launched in 2009, Kepler has endured mechanical failures and other mishaps.
But there’s no getting around an empty fuel tank. The fuel is needed for pointing the telescope.
Kepler’s antenna must be pointed toward Earth to get the most recent observations back. For now, that’s the team’s highest priority.
A Russian cargo ship delivered a fresh load of fuel, food, and other supplies for the International Space Station on Tuesday, making it in record time.
The Progress MS-09 lifted off as scheduled at 3:51 am (2151 GMT; 5:51 pm EDT Monday) from the Russia-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The unmanned spacecraft
years because it’s been so hard to catch,” senior wildlife officer John Burke told broadcaster ABC. (AFP) loaded with nearly three tons of supplies docked at the station in automatic mode less than four hours after the launch.
It marked the first time such a fasttrack approach was used. In the past, it took the Progress ships up to two days to reach the space outpost.
Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said the faster maneuver became possible thanks to a new version of the Soyuz booster rocket, noting that it puts the ship into orbit with higher precision.
NASA said that the fast trip to the station was intended to test an expedited capability that could be used on future Russian cargo and crew launch missions.
An Israeli organisation announced plans Tuesday to launch the country’s first spacecraft to the moon in December, with hopes of burnishing Israel’s reputation as a small nation with otherworldly high-tech ambitions.
The unmanned spacecraft, shaped like a pod and weighing some 585 kilogrammes (1,300 pounds) at launch, will land on the moon on Feb 13, 2019 if all goes according to plan, organisers SpaceIL told a news conference in Yehud, central Israel.
The vessel will be launched via a rocket from American entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm and its mission will include research on the moon’s magnetic field.
N. Mexico N-arms lab turns 75:
When J. Robert Oppenheimer invited top scientists, engineers and technicians to New Mexico in 1943 to build the world’s first nuclear weapon, no one really knew what the results would be.
What they did know was that they had to succeed at all costs since intelligence reports indicated Germany and its allies were working toward the same goal.
The once-secret city of Los Alamos is marking 75 years of discovery at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which still plays a key role in maintaining the United States’ nuclear weapons cache.
The facility also still conducts research on everything from renewable energy technology to public health concerns and the effects of insects on stressed forests. (AP)