Rising from fire and smoke, NASA's Juno planetary probe, enclosed in its payload fairing, launches atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Leaving from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on August 5, 2011, the spacecraft will embark on a five-year journey to Jupiter. The solar-powered spacecraft will orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere and investigate the existence of a solid planetary core.
NASA's Juno planetary probe, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V-551 launch vehicle, races past the clouds over Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to begin its five-year journey to Jupiter. The Juno spacecraft will make a five-year, 400-million-mile voyage to Jupiter, orbit the planet, investigate its origin and evolution with eight instruments to probe its internal structure and gravity field, measure water and ammonia in its atmosphere, map its powerful magnetic field and observe its intense auroras.
This animated sequence from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory AIA imager shows the evaporation of a sun-grazing comet as it disintegrated over about a 15-minute period on July 6, 2011. These observations made in extreme ultraviolet light show the comet's material interact with the corona of the Sun. The angle of the comet's orbit brought it across the front half of the Sun. It's not immediately obvious, but if you watch the movie closely, you'll see a line of light appear in the right just off the edge of the Sun and move across to the left. Given the intense heat and radiation, the comet simply evaporated away completely. The comet was probably a member of the Kreutz sun-grazer family.
Testing continues on the next generation of manned spacecraft. This is the third water landing test of the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV), conducted at the Hydro Impact Basin located at NASA Langley Research Center in August of 2011. This scenario represented the worst-case scenario for landing. The prediction had a 50% chance of the test article becoming inverted. The Orion Project Team collects valuable data regarding Crew Module stability.
Technicians at Astrotech's payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida, watch vigilantly as NASA's Juno spacecraft is tested for center of gravity, weighing and balancing on the rotation stand on June 16, 2011. Juno launched aboard United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 5.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, named Curiosity, viewed on May 26, 2011, in Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The rover was shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on June 22, 2011. The mission is scheduled to launch between November 25 and December 18, 2011, and land the rover Curiosity on Mars in August 2012. Researchers will use tools on Curiosity to study whether the landing region has had environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and for preserving clues about whether life existed.
In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover (upper left, folded), is being prepared to be moved to a rotation fixture for testing. The spacecraft's backshell (right), will carry the parachute and several components used during later stages of entry, descent and landing. The backshell and the heat shield (previous image) combine to make a protective aeroshell for the rover. The module in the center is the Sky Crane, which will hold the rover inside the aeroshell, then, when it's very close to the Martian surface, it will fire its rockets, hovering, and slowly lower the rover to the ground.
The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), one of three cameras to fly on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, launching in late 2011. MAHLI is a 2-megapixel RGB color CCD camera with a focusable macro lens mounted on an instrument-bearing turret on the end of Curiosity's robotic arm, with 8 GB non-volatile flash memory plus 128 MB volatile storage, and an ability to acquire 720p, ~7 Hz high-definition video. MAHLI's main job is to acquire color close-up images of rocks and surface materials in Curiosity's landing area.
NASA engineer Ernie Wright looks on as the first six flight ready James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) primary mirror segments are prepped to begin final cryogenic testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In July, 2011, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA proposed a 2012 spending bill that would terminate the JWST program as part of wider-reaching cutbacks. As budget talks continue, the future of the $6.5 billion heir to the Hubble Space Telescope remains uncertain, but the prospects appear bleak for it's planned 2018 launch.
This series of images shows warm-season features that might be evidence of salty liquid water active on Mars. These images come from observations of Newton crater by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In time, the series spans from early spring of one Mars year to mid-summer of the following year. The features that extend down the slope during warm seasons are called recurring slope lineae. They are narrow (one-half to five yards or meters wide), relatively dark markings on steep (25 to 40 degree) slopes at several southern hemisphere locations. They appear and lengthen in the southern spring and summer from 48 degrees to 32 degrees south latitudes favoring equator-facing slopes. These times and places have peak surface temperatures from about 10 degrees below zero Fahrenheit to 80 degree above zero Fahrenheit (about 250 to 300 Kelvin). Liquid brines near the surface might explain this activity, but the exact mechanism and source of the water are not understood.
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