Kentucky Space

Direct observation of exoplanet?

Dennis Overbye: Scientists have released a picture of what may be the third exoplanet to be imaged directly.

Wayne

NASA and NextGen

NASA has published a report on a series of cross-generational meetings held this year to talk about issues of concern to the agency's younger workforce, according to Open NASA. A briefing and report may be found on this page.

Wayne

In full color: Jupiter and Ganymede

Just released from Hubble, here is a photo of Jupiter and its moon Ganymede, which is just disappearing behind the gas planet. Hat tip: Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society.

Wayne

Credit: NASA, ESA, and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona)

Jeffrey Manber on The Space Show

Kentucky Space advisor, commercial space pioneer and contributor to this blog, Jeffrey Manber, was recently interviewed by Dr. David Livingston on the popular radio program, The Space Show. Give it a listen if you get the chance.

Dr. Livingston will also host Kris Kimel, who founded Kentucky Space, on his Dec. 23 show. Links to the times and live audio for the The Space Show may be found here.

Wayne

Fighting disease in space

By observing how Salmonella cultured aboard the Space Shuttle had become especially virulent because of its weightless environment, scientists have learned more in general about how pathogens cause disease and discovered potential therapies for limiting virulence in human bodies on Earth. The development of smaller and less expensive spacecraft, as well as less costly ways to access space, will extend medical research.

Wayne

Salmonella typhimurium image source

"Playground events" encourage the swing-set to talk with their spacecraft

 I first heard the phrase "playground events" at the 2008 Kentucky Space seminar and it's stuck with me ever since.

The vision of building a Kentucky space program with Kentucky talent can't be achieved without engaging kids in primary school. So it's no coincidence that there has been a lot of thought given to showing them how exciting space can be. 

Creating playground events is one way to build early enthusiasm.

As part of that effort, KySpace launched its first high altitude balloon last summer from the Bowling Green airport and invited children to come out and contribute a payload, pongsats, that flew along with the serious hardware. It was, as UK Engineering Professor Jim Lumpp described, a really good day, and more such launches are planned.

As shown in the pictures here and described by Tyler Doering, the lead graduate student for KySat-1, the basic idea for bringing an orbital mission to kids is to take portable equipment to playgrounds and let them interact with and listen to their satellite.

In addition to the VHF/UHF radio, an S-band radio on board KySat-1 will be used in conjunction with the 21 meter dish at the Space Sciences Center at Morehead State University for communication. More on that, as well as how Kentucky Space has been able to help a German cubesat project, "Compass One," can be found here. 

[Update] If you're dropping by from the Carnival of Space, Dr. David Livingston will host Kris Kimel, who founded Kentucky Space, on his Dec. 23 show. Links to the times and live audio for the The Space Show may be found here. 

Wayne

Kentucky Space, German cube Compass One collaborate

SEFSpaceworks, a new space business site devoted "small, entrepreneurial and functional space," yesterday published a piece describing the collaboration between Kentucky Space and the Aachen University "Compass One" satellite. Besides a 21 meter Space Tracking Antenna at Morehead State University in Kentucky that will be used with the S-band on KySat-1, Kentucky Space has a couple of portable Earth stations that can be used to communicate in the VHF/UHF bands used by Compass One.

The whole story describes the arrangement in more detail. Check it out if you get the chance.

Wayne

New Google Lunar X Prize teams announced

The Google Lunar X Prize introduced a couple of new teams yesterday. Run by the X Prize Foundation, the prize will reward the first team to get to and land on the moon with a robotic explorer and send back video. The full list of teams is here.

Wayne

Titan portrait

This view of shrouded Titan, one of the most interesting moons in our solar system, was recently snapped by Cassini and published by the craft's imaging team, CiCLOPS. Titan has an atmosphere and other collected data suggests active cryovolcanism on the surface.

Wayne

Image source: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

New book: Solar sail technology

The Space Fellowship reviews a new book on solar sails that, with one exception, targets the general space reader. The book provides many additional resources for those seeking a deeper dive into the science and technology.

The final section is a bit more technical, according the review:

The final part then as already mentioned raises the reading level a bit. First handled are stars with their light, special attention is given to our sun. The main focus of this part is trajectories for sailcrafts, due to the constant propulsion non-Keplerian orbits are possible for example. The last chapter finally describes the impacts of space environment on sails.

Wayne