A frog made a giant leap for amphibian-kind during the lift-off of the Minotaur V last Friday : Frog Photobombs LADEE Launch – Business Insider
Image Credits: NASA Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional SpaceportVideo: Building and testing Maven
The next probe to Mars will be NASA’s MAVEN orbiter, scheduled to lift off in November. Emily Lakdawalla writes about the mission and includes a couple of interesting videos : Taking a close look at MAVEN assembly and testing videos – The Planetary Society
Opening the solar panels
A time lapse of the assembly in the clean room:
Video: John S. Lewis talk on asteroids and mining them
Here is a video of the talk by asteroid guru John Lewis (see earlier post) given in Silicon Valley last night:
Amateur and student radio astronomy conferences for 2014
The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) will hold their 2014 conference in tandem with the conference for Radio Jove (Solar and Planetary Astronomy for Schools) at Green Bank, West Virginia.
SARA and Radio Jove Conferences to be held in 2014
The Radio Jove team has announced they will conduct a conference immediately following the SARA conference at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia. The SARA Annual Conference will be June 29 to July 2 and the Radio Jove Conference will be July 2 to July 4, 2014. Anyone interested in radio astronomy is invited to attend either or both conferences, membership is not required.
The SARA Conference will feature presentations on a wide variety of topics from beginner to advanced and radio astronomy projects will be set up on the lawn in the evenings. The Radio Jove team will have presentations on Jupiter and solar observations as well as hardware and software. A Radio Jove system will be set up on the lawn. Dick Flagg, Wes Greenman and Jim Thieman as well as other Jove team members are planning to attend.
Details on the conference can be found at http://www.radio-astronomy.org/node/124
Registration fees and forms can be found at http://www.radio-astronomy.org/node/153
Photos to Space: “Astro Corps – Join the Adventure!”
Photos To Space, a HobbySpace sponsor, introduces their new Astro Corps team:
Astro Corps – Join The Adventure!
Send Your Photo To Space With Our Astro Corps Team.
Countdown To Liftoff!
On September 22, 2013, Photos To Space will launch the first Astro Corps flight to the edge of space. You can be a part of this historic adventure. Just upload your photo using the form below and follow along as we countdown to our first Astro Corps flight.
Who’s Flying On Such A Mission?
Three brave souls have been selected to fly on this historic mission: Gene, the plucky American; Yuri, the hot shot Ukrainian and Riley, a smart scientist from Australia. Each of our explorers has been dreaming of the day when they can go to space. But who are they? They come from different backgrounds but all bring a passion for space. Read More about them on the Astro Corps Bios page.
Learn More About The Flight.
What does it take to get to the edge of space? The team is flying on the ‘Away Mission’ vehicle. Flown by JP Aerospace, this craft is a well know and trusted design having flown numerous times before.
The vehicle should fly to almost 20 miles before the systems return it safely back home. Your photo will be kept safe with our Astro Corps crew during the entire flight.
To get started on your adventure just pick a photo and fill out the flight form. You will receive an email welcoming you to the team.
Certificate of Flight
When the mission is over, we will look through the data and create certificates of participation including all of the details of your Astro Corps mission. We’ll include information such as how high the vehicle went, how fast it traveled and what the cameras saw during the flight.
Sign up today and experience the adventure!
Hurry. This flight closes on September 15th at 11:59pm Eastern Time.
A SpacerGuild Activity
In addition to sending your photo, this flight earns you SpacerGuild points. More info about this wonderful program will be coming soon!