[News & Analysis] Space Exploration: India Aims a Probe at Mars—And at Earthly Prestige

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Private Spacecraft Lifts Off With Space Station Supplies

Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft has successfully launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on its way to becoming the second private vehicle to resupply the International Space Station.

Space.com says:

"The unmanned Cygnus spacecraft and its Antares rocket soared into orbit with a tremendous roar at 10:58 a.m. EDT (1458 GMT) today from [Wallops] — a huge success for the commercial spaceflight company Orbital Sciences Corp., which built both vehicles. The spacecraft is now chasing the space station and is due to arrive early Sunday (Sept. 22), when it will be captured by astronauts using the outpost's robotic arm."

Cygnus bears "1,300 pounds of food, clothing and goodies for the astronauts," The Associated Press says.

Orbital Sciences and billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX Corp. have been contracted to supply the orbiting outpost since the space shuttle was retired two years ago. Two SpaceX Dragon robotic capsules have already been up on resupply missions, the most recent one in March.

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This Day in Science History - September 18 - Space Tortoises

September 18, 1968 is the day the Soviet space probe, Zond 5 became the first spacecraft to fly around the moon and return to Earth. It was designed to launch from Earth orbit, reach the moon and return as a precursor to a possible manned mission. Besides taking photographs of Earth and the Moon, the probe carried a biological payload of insects, bacteria, plants and two Russian steppe tortoises. The Zond 5 returned to Earth to splash down in the Indian Ocean. The probe was recovered and the tortoises survived. They lost some weight and the trip did not affect their appetite.

These tortoises were the first tortoises in space and also became the first tortoises to fly around the Moon. Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

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[News & Analysis] Space Science: Novel Craft Sets Out to Probe the Mysteries of Moondust

Science 13 September 2013:
Vol. 341 no. 6151 p. 1161
DOI: 10.1126/science.341.6151.1161 Space Science A new lunar mission that blasted off from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia last week will study the moon's atmosphere and dust. In addition, it will give NASA a chance to test a new laser communications system and a novel concept for designing spacecraft that could help future space missions.

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Kepler Space Telescope Is Beyond Repair, NASA Says

The Kepler Space Telescope was focused on hunting for planets in this patch of the Milky Way. Without two of its four spinning reaction wheels, it can't keep its gaze on target.

Carter Roberts/NASA

There's some sad news from NASA: The space agency says its Kepler space telescope is beyond repair.

The $600 million planet-hunting probe whose mission was to search other solar systems for Earth-like planets has lost its ability to keep its gaze on target.

Two of the four gyroscope-like reaction wheels that keep Kepler pointed in the right direction have broken down and can't be fixed, but NASA is still hoping it can find some less-stressful work for the orbiting observatory.

The four-year-old telescope had been looking for planets in the "goldilocks" zone — where the planet is neither too close to its star, where it's too hot for life, nor too far away, where it's too cold.

An artist's illustration of Kepler-22b, a planet that circles its star in the "goldilocks" zone.

Ames/JPL-Caltech/NASA/Getty Images

Since its launch, Kepler has confirmed 135 planets orbiting around other stars, and more than 3,500 other "candidate" planets that need further data analysis.

John Grunsfeld, the associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate says Kepler has made some "extraordinary discoveries" in finding planets in this habitable goldilocks zone, including three just this past April.

Although the telescope won't be collecting any more planet-hunting data, there's still lots of information to sift through.

"Knowing that Kepler has successfully collected all the data from its prime mission, I am confident that more amazing discoveries are on the horizon," Grunsfeld said.

NASA has known for a while now that Kepler's days as a planet hunter might be coming to an end. The telescope first started having problems in July 2012 when one of its reaction wheels stopped working. Then this past May, a second one broke down.

Since then, NASA has been sending commands to Kepler to get it back into full working order, but to no avail.

So NASA is now looking to see what kind of science Kepler might be able to do with only half of its reaction wheels working. To that end, it's put out a "call for two-wheel science proposals," seeking input from the science community for "alternate science investigations," with the understanding that two-wheel operation "will not provide pointing stability on par with the original mission performance."

If only NASA could bolt on some telescope training wheels.

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