Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 30, 2009 under Spacecraft | 
On Monday (March 30, 2009) visitors to the National Mall in Washington, DC were treated to a rare first look at NASA’s Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. The full scale mockup of the capsule, which has had infrequent public display, was en route to Florida from NAVSEA Carderock in Bethesda where it underwent water testing.
Orion is under development as part of NASA’s Constellation program. NASA plans for Orion include future lunar missions and as an emergency return vehicle for the International Space Station. The crew module, reminiscent of the Apollo capsule, is noticeably larger as it is designed for a crew of 6.
This slide show contains a handful of pictures I was able to take myself. Click on any image view it full size in a new window.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 29, 2009 under Discussion, Spacecraft |
A full-size mockup of NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle will be on display tomorrow (March 30) on the National Mall in front of the National Air and Space Museum. The mockup is en route to Florida following water testing near Bethesda. According to NASA, the goal of the test is to determine the kind of motions an astronaut crew can expect after landing, as well as conditions outside for the recovery team. NASA engineers and personnel will be available all day at the National Mall event to answer questions about the Orion crew module and the Constellation program.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 28, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Press Release Image - Credit: Mike Mills
Virgin Galactic EVE Test Flight
WhiteKnightTwo (also known as “EVE”) completed its third successful test flight yesterday - the longest and fastest to date with a duration of over two and half hours, maximum speed of 140 knots and an altitude of over 18,000 ft. EVE is a jet-powered aircraft designed as a launch platform for SpacShipTwo being built for Virgin Galactic by Scaled Composites. The company belives the craft has the potential to launch an unmanned rocket capable of putting a satellite into low Earth orbit.
Commenting on the flights, Burt Rutan, Founder of Scaled Composites said:
“WhiteKnightTwo really is an impressive vehicle and it represents the apogee of the application of carbon composites to aerospace, all of us at Scaled are tremendously excited by its capabilities. I believe the vehicle will be developed and sold for a variety of launch applications beyond the initial requirements of Virgin Galactic.”
The URL above leads to the company’s press kit for the sucessful flight. Towards the bottom of the page are a dozen photos from the flight along with a flight video.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 27, 2009 under Manned Spaceflight |
Images from Apollo
On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong took “one small step” and “a giant leap for mankind.” NASA is commemorating this historic moment with a series of activities throughout the year. Thousands of images along with archival footage have been released in this online gallery.
Apollo 40th Anniversary
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 22, 2009 under Collections, Manned Spaceflight |
Space Story
Story Musgrave, the only astronaut to have flown on all five space shuttles, retired from NASA following a career spanning 30 years and 25 million miles in orbit. Today, Story remains a popular speaker and a consultant to Disney’s Imagineering Group. On his site, Story presents three digital slideshows Faces of Earth, The Heavens, and Humanity each with mutliple chapters featuring images from the unique perspective of a modern explorer.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 19, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Andøya Rocket Range
Andøya Rocket Range (ARR) is a premier provider of space-related services for the science and aerospace communities world wide. Launching sounding rockets and long duration balloons since the early sixties, it is the world’s northernmost permanent facility for launching sounding rockets and balloons. AndøyaRocket Range is an operational unit in the Norwegian Space Centre. This site includes features a photoblog featuring rockets and rocket launches.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 11, 2009 under Deep Space Imagery |
HubbleSite.org
This stuff never gets old. The Hubble Space Telescope has awed us for years with jaw-dropping views of the cosmos. Plans to cut costs and retire the Hubble proved so unpopular that NASA now plans to keep this national treasure in service through 2013. This site is loaded with photo albums, wallpaper, and the best Hubble has to offer. The latest images are easily found in a dedicated portion of the main page.
For the diehard fan:
Track the Hubble Space Telescope in real time
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 6, 2009 under Collections |
NASAImages.org
NASA Images is a service of Internet Archive ( www.archive.org ), a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers. The Internet Archive receives no financial support from NASA. The image collections are presented in five categories: aeronautics, solar system, earth, astronauts, and universe.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 4, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Starchaser
Starchaser’s contribution to the Ansari X-Prize competition was nicknamed “Thunderbird” and in 2006 displayed a prototype Thunderstar capsule at the X Prize Cup. This gallery contains a collection of images showing their ongoing work including the Skybolt sounding rocket.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 2, 2009 under Collections |
NASA Image Exchange
The NASA Image Exchange is not an actual image collection, but a multimedia search engine. It allows you to search for photos, videos and audio clips from several NASA archives in a single search. Not every NASA collection is included, however, nor does the site disclose which are included and which are not. Sometimes it can be difficult to find keywords that work. The search seems to work best with very general search terms. Regardless, it can be a useful resource for the space image hunter.
