Opportunity & Curiosity return to active duty as Mars comes back in view

Both the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers are back in action after a month’s rest while communications with Mars was blocked as it passed on the far side of the Sun from the earth:

Bandella – space band includes one player in space

Famous technology investor and rocket enthusiast Steve Jurvetson recently attended a “7 conference” and recorded the live performance of the astronaut band “Bandella”:

They describe Bandella as an unlikely band of NASA astronauts with Chris Hadfield currently in space (guitars, vocals, first Canadian Commander of the ISS), Micki Pettit (lead vocals, wife of Don Petit, the first to enter the SpaceX Dragon capsule in space), Cady Coleman (flute, 180 days in space so far) and other stars who drift into nearer-earth orbit.

Here are some pictures of the event: Earth Day Serenade from Space – Flickr.

A Space Technology course in MOOC competition

The MOOC Production Fellowship competition will provide 25000 Euro to each of the ten winning MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) programs out of the 200 that have entered. The winners will be determined by online voting. Anyone may vote for the contestants until May 23rd. The winning courses will be offered for free at the iversity online learning site.

I received a message from Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Berlin, Institute of Technology about their  Space Technology  entry in the competition. The course has no prerequisites “other than a basic understanding of maths”.

The course “Space Technology” covers the fundamentals of space engineering, as well as further related subjects like space law, space politics or management of a space project.

At first, a brief introduction of our solar system and the space environment will give an idea about the destination space. On a trip to space, one has to expect an extremely harsh environment with vacuum, zero-gravity, deadly radiation, micrometeoroids and extreme temperatures. Still, space engineering enables spacecraft and humans to survive under these conditions.

Most of today’s space applications are based on satellites. Therefore, a focus will be set on satellites and their subsystems. Here, subjects like mechanical structures, thermal control, electrical power systems, attitude determination and control, data management and communications will be introduced using a mixture of theory and real mission examples.

One of the most fascinating sectors of space technology is human space flight. A section will be devoted to human spaceflight. In this section several topics like life support systems, astronaut training and space stations will be addressed.

Continue…

This video also describes the course:

Everyone can participate in space