Scott Kelly, NASA Astronaut, Tweets Picture of Manhattan From International Space Station
Get an Astronaut's-Eye View of SpaceX's Dragon Launch Abort Test
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship is being built to zoom astronauts out of harm's way in the event of a launch pad emergency — but based on newly released video that was captured during this month's pad abort test, it could be the kind of ride people would pay for, even if they're not going into space.
The May 6 test flight at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida marked the first on-the-pad trial for the Crew Dragon "pusher" system, powered by the next-gen capsule's eight SuperDraco thrusters. The Dragon accelerated from zero to 100 mph (160 kilometers per hour) in just 1.2 seconds and reached a top speed of 345 mph (555 kilometers per hour).
SpaceX's two-minute video, recorded by cameras mounted on the Dragon, shows the Florida landscape falling away as the craft rises about a mile (1.5 kilometers) above the pad. There are some thrilling moments as the Dragon slowly tumbles, the "trunk" separates and flies away, and the parachutes unfurl. Then there's a nice and easy drift down to the Atlantic.
The latest video doesn't show the splashdown, but you can watch that part of the ride at the end of a video that SpaceX released just a couple of days after the test.
So how would the ride feel? "Had there been people on board, they would have been in great shape," SpaceX's founder and CEO, Elon Musk, told reporters just after the test.
The only one who could contradict Musk on that score was the crash-test dummy that was strapped into the Dragon — and the dummy isn't giving interviews. For a true first-person account, we'll probably have to wait until 2017, when crewed tests of the Crew Dragon are due to begin.
The Boeing Co. is developing its own crew vehicle for NASA's use, known as the CST-100. Both companies are receiving billions of dollars from the space agency to support the projects, and they're expected to start flying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in 2017.
IN-DEPTH
- SpaceX Dragon Capsule Splashes Down
- Dragon Pad Abort Test Is a Real Blast
- Here's What It's Like Inside SpaceX's Dragon Capsule
SOCIAL
ALAN BOYLE
Cosmic Cannibal: Massive 'Nasty' Star Observed by Hubble Telescope
An ongoing act of cosmic cannibalism may be responsible for the strange appearance and unprecedented behavior of a gigantic star nicknamed "Nasty 1," a new study reports.
Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have revealed a disk of gas nearly 3 trillion miles (4.8 trillion kilometers) wide surrounding Nasty 1, which is a massive, rapidly aging object known as a Wolf-Rayet star.
Wolf-Rayet stars start out big, initially containing at least 20 times more mass than the sun. But their hydrogen-dominated outer layers soon puff up and are lost, exposing the objects' helium-burning cores to space. Astronomers aren't exactly sure how this process unfolds, but they have a few ideas. [Top 10 Strangest Things in Space]
For example, some scientists think these massive stars' powerful stellar winds blow away their own hydrogen envelopes. Another idea holds that the outer layers are siphoned off by a cannibalistic companion star.
"That's what we think is happening in Nasty 1," study lead author Jon Mauerhan, of the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement, referring to the second hypothesis. "We think there is a Wolf-Rayet star buried inside the nebula, and we think the nebula is being created by this mass-transfer process. So this type of sloppy stellar cannibalism actually makes Nasty 1 a rather fitting nickname."
Such a disc had never before been seen surrounding a Wolf-Rayet star, researchers said. The nebula is likely only a few thousand years old and lies about 3,000 light-years from Earth, they added.
Several other factors further bolster the cannibalism idea over the stellar-wind hypothesis, study team members said. For one thing, at least 70 percent of all massive stars belong to binary systems. And modeling work suggests that such a star's own winds may not be strong enough to push it to Wolf-Rayet status.
"We're finding that it is hard to form all the Wolf-Rayet stars we observe by the traditional wind mechanism, because mass loss isn't as strong as we used to think," co-author Nathan Smith, of the University of Arizona, said in the same statement.
"Mass exchange in binary systems seems to be vital to account for Wolf-Rayet stars and the supernovae they make, and catching binary stars in this short-lived phase will help us understand this process," Smith added.
The new study was published online Thursday (May 21) in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
This is a condensed version of a report from Space.com. Read the full report. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+.
More from Space.com
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo 2.0 Puts 'Weight on Wheels'
Nearly seven months after a fatal breakup destroyed Virgin Galactic's first SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, the second SpaceShipTwo reached a construction milestone on Thursday: "weight on wheels," the point at which the structure is able to stand on its own landing gear rather than resting on supports.
"Although there's still much work to be done, this was a powerful and emotional moment for our team to reflect on how far we have come," the company wrote in a Facebook post.
Construction of SpaceShipTwo Tail No. 2 began even before last October's tragic test flight. The plane, known as VSS Enterprise, broke up just seconds after its test pilots fired up the hybrid rocket engine. The co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, died in the crash; pilot Pete Siebold was injured.
The National Transportation Safety Board has not yet released the findings of its accident investigation, but Virgin Galactic's executives have voiced confidence they'll be able to follow up on any recommendations by the time SpaceShipTwo 2.0 takes flight.
The plane is taking shape inside a giant hangar at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, under the supervision of The Spaceship Company, Virgin Galactic's manufacturing wing.
"We're very happy with our team and with the progress we have made so far in building our new spaceship," Doug Shane, president of The Spaceship Company, said in comments emailed to NBC News. "They've put an incredible amount of thought, care, and attention to detail into building this beautiful new vehicle. We know there is a lot of work still in front of us, but we feel a deep sense of pride about how far we've come."
Virgin Galactic CEO George T. Whitesides told NBC News last year that ground testing of SpaceShipTwo 2.0 could begin by midyear this year, but the company hasn't provided an updated development schedule.
After ground testing, the plane would have to go through a long series of captive-carry flights, glide flights and powered flights — eventually rising to outer-space heights. Only after all that would SpaceShipTwo enter commercial spaceflight service.
About 700 customers have paid as much as $250,000 each to take suborbital flights to the edge of space, where they'd experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get astronaut's-eye views of the curving Earth. Although the test flights would be flown out of Mojave, the commercial takeoffs and landings would occur at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
NBCUniversal has established a multi-platform partnership with Virgin Galactic to track the development of SpaceShipTwo.
ALAN BOYLE
Most Luminous Known Galaxy Shines Brighter Than Light of 300 Trillion Suns
NASA researchers have identified the brightest galaxy ever encountered, which shines in the infrared wavelength with the equivalent light of 300 trillion suns.
The "extremely luminous infrared galaxy," or ELIRG, was encountered in data from 2010's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. The WISE space telescope has revealed a number of strange and unique galaxies. This one, the astronomers theorize, may have a supermassive black hole at the center, which draws immense amounts of gas and matter into itself and releases a veritable rainbow of electromagnetic energy.
The energy is blocked by thick a halo of dust, which absorbs it and heats up, emitting infrared light instead — and in unprecedented amounts.
What's more, this particular galaxy is so far away that the light we're receiving on Earth was given off about 12.5 billion years ago. That means it grew that large and that bright during the infancy of the universe itself. To the researchers, that suggests that the black hole forming the center of the galaxy is breaking the rules somehow. For example, it may have started out bigger than any others we've encountered,.
"Another way for a black hole to grow this big is for it to have gone on a sustained binge, consuming food faster than typically thought possible," the University of Leicester's Andrew Blain, co-author of the report describing the galaxy, said in a NASA news release.
"It's like winning a hot-dog-eating contest lasting hundreds of millions of years." (The term hot DOGs does appear in the paper, but in reference to "hot dust-obscured galaxies" like this one.)
Understanding the galaxy's formation will help shed light on the early history of the universe and set a precedent for studying similar objects. The report appears in the May 22 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, and can be read on the ArXiv preprint server.
IN-DEPTH
- Scientists Map Halo of Gas Around Andromeda Galaxy
- Dead Galaxies Perished by 'Strangulation,' Astronomers Find
- Crashing Galaxies Shed New Light on Dark Matter Mystery
SOCIAL
DEVIN COLDEWEY
SpaceX Dragon Capsule Splashes Down, Ending Longest Cargo Run
A robotic SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, ending the longest-lasting Dragon resupply mission to the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who's spending almost a year on the space station, used the outpost's robotic arm to unhook the gumdrop-shaped spacecraft from its port on the station's Harmony module and release it for the homeward journey.
Hours later, SpaceX said the Dragon splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:42 p.m. ET, about 155 miles southwest of Long Beach, California.
The capsule was packed with more than 3,100 pounds of equipment and experiments, including an assortment of roundworms that were used to study the effects of spaceflight on the aging process. A recovery ship picked up the Dragon and is bringing it back to port. Eventually, the capsule will be transported to SpaceX's test facility in Texas for processing.
This was the sixth of 15 scheduled cargo resupply missions that California-based SpaceX is taking on under the terms of a NASA contract. SpaceX launched the Dragon with more than 4,300 pounds of cargo on a Falcon 9 rocket on April 14, making for a 37-day stay at the space station. One of the items on board was the first zero-G espresso machine to go into outer space.
Another Dragon shipment is due to be launched on June 26. That delivery could be crucial, in light of last October's failure of an Orbital Sciences Cygnus resupply mission and the loss of a Russian Progress cargo ship in April.
IN-DEPTH
- So Close! Watch Falcon 9 Rocket Land on a Ship
- SpaceX Launches Cargo, Then Rocket Hits the Deck
- Launch Pad Test is a Real Blast for SpaceX
SOCIAL
ALAN BOYLE
Dawn Probe Gets Closer Look at Ceres' White Spots, But Mystery Endures
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