Wayne Rooney: England's greatest ever striker

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Floating marketsStumpy bananas, rose apples, coconuts and spices sit heaped on skinny picket sampans rowed by farmers in bamboo hats. previous teak wood homes appear to bend over the calm water of country canals. native chatter and also the appetising scent of whole fishes on the grill fills joyous air. maybe nothing in Kingdom of Thailand captivates travellers’ imaginations over a floating market.Before the middle twentieth century, rivers and canals were the most thanks to travel in Kingdom of Thailand. because the sun rose on the times of full and new moons, farmers would haul their product by boat to trade with alternative farmers and merchants from the cities. In associate era once several learned to row before they might walk, the floating market was a natural extension of associate agricultural mode centred round the waterways.When roads and tyres took the place of rivers and oars, floating markets nearly died out. They’ve seen a revitalization over the past few decades, and particularly within the last 5 years, although they usually operate these days as traveler attractions and community meeting places instead of very important aspects of native farming economies. that is to not say that you just ought to strike them off your itinerary; several floating markets within the larger port space stay spirited places brimful with tasteful food .Some of the markets mentioned here aren’t quite accurately termed “floating markets” however to be honest, the Thai term talaat nam virtually interprets as “water market”. Some do not even have vendors on boats, however all area unit centred around a watercourse or canal, and it’s attainable to rearrange a ship go for holiday at any of them. detain mind that several of those places need a one- to two-hour drive outside of Bangkok; click on the name of every for associate comprehensive review with directions on obtaining there.Thaling ChanA quick taxi ride from central port, Thaling Chan is that the most convenient floating market to succeed in on your own, that conjointly means that it’s one in all the foremost touristed. Get here early if you would like a seat on the floating platform wherever floating vendors can deliver an honest mixture of food straight to your table. Opened within the late Nineteen Eighties, this was among the primary ‘new age’ floating markets to be found out expressly for business enterprise.Open 08:00 to 16:00, Sabbatum and Sunday solely.Khlong latisimus dorsi MayomAlso on the Thonburi aspect inside port town limits, Khlong latisimus dorsi Mayom was launched 5 years past as an area for locals to fulfill and share food on weekends. although it’s become fashionable Thai tourists, few foreigners build it here. The market is ready on a slender canal with one or two of boat vendors, however most of the fabulous food is found amid tightly packed walkways ashore. excluding ingestion, activities embrace a collection associated an arts and crafts station for the youngsters.Open 08:00 to 16:00, Sabbatum and Sunday solely.Kwan RiamOpened in 2012 on the San Saeb canal in Bangkok’s japanese reaches, Kwan Riam does not hide the actual fact that it is a fashionable floating market. that is not essentially a foul factor — the spacious orbit embrace cool mist sprayers, full-on restaurants in funky coated boats and even electronic bathrooms in sparkling clean loos. although the placement off Ramkamhaeng Road is simple to succeed in by taxi, Kwan Riam has nonetheless to catch on among foreign travellers.Open 08:00 to 16:00, Sabbatum and Sunday solely.Bang Nam PhuengThis comparatively new market could be a put attentiveness within the lives of villagers from Phra Phradaeng (aka Bang Kachao), associate unlikely pocket of country approachable via a fast ferry hop from Sukhumvit Road. If we tend to may opt for only one weekend market within the immediate port neighborhood, Bang Nam Phueng would be it. The vendors area unit friendly, the food is outstanding and also the walkways that snake past canals dripping in tropical foliage play a unforgettable atmosphere. once stuffing yourself with food that always comes from native gardens, lie for a massage, obtain domestically created health product or see however your singing skills rise to Thai country tunes.Open 08:00 to 16:00, Sabbatum and Sunday solely.Lam PhayaSet in a fascinating village on the Tha Jeen watercourse to the west of port, Lam Phaya ticks all of the floating market boxes. It boasts a wealth of food; the atmosphere is additional ‘local’ than touristy; it’s spacious with many space for strike lunches; several vendors prepare food on rowboats therefore you will not miss out on those instance floating market snaps; it’s set around a historic temple with a good museum; and it offers boat journeys that enable you to absorb the slow-paced riverside mode. Lam Phaya is value equally of the substantial effort it takes to induce there.Open 07:00 to 16:00, Sabbatum and Sunday solely.Don WaiIt’s true that this century-old market on the Tha Jeen does not have vendors on boats, and its slender walkways will get painfully packed, however it’s still well worth the trip for one in all the foremost unbelievable spreads of food we’ve found anyplace in Kingdom of Thailand. Once your hands area unit filled with roast duck, preserved fruits and hard-to-find curries, take respite from the crowds on a lunch cruise to a neighborhood temple. Arrive on a weekday or too soon a weekend to avoid the crowds.Open 06:00 to 16:00, every day.Khlong SuanAnother boat-free market beside a waterway, Khlong Suan is additionally worthy for its memorable food and old-fashioned ambiance. With dumplings, steamed curry cakes and cooked side of pork in your belly, examine vintage artefacts during a dust-covered repository, attempt a domestically created broom or get a trim at a one hundred year-old barber look. Despite it being therefore previous, Khlong Suan is sort of spacious, and it’s a wonderful selection if you are keen on experiencing a classic canal-side Thai market. And hey, if you actually need to visualize small boat vendors, Bang Khla are often visited on an equivalent day.Open 07:00 to 16:00, every day.Bang KhlaNestled on the Bang Pakong watercourse in Chachoengsao province east of port, the little however charming Bang Khla consists of a floating area enclosed by vendors WHO prepare food from the comfort of their rowboats. The chuck area unit sensible, however the relaxed setting and lack of tourists area unit the $64000 attracts. take care to go away space for the luscious yellow mangoes that this space is known for.Open 08:00 to 16:00, Sabbatum and Sunday solely.Ko KretMainly a land market set on the coast of this inexperienced island that sits inside the river watercourse north of port, knockout Kret is that the place in Kingdom of Thailand to sample authentic Mon food. once you are filled with Mon specialties, buy stuff clay Mon pottery, take a reel the island on a bicycle, or hop during a boat for a cruise to a canal flanked by homes wherever you will find a number of the simplest Thai vogue sweets in Kingdom of Thailand.Open 08:00 to 16:00, Sabbatum and Sunday solely.Damnoen SaduakIf you book “the floating market tour” from on the subject of any unexceptional port agency, likelihood is that you may find yourself here. Those incoming simply once sunrise area unit treated to the attractive scenes of boats crammed with brilliantly colored turn out that place floating markets on the traveler path within the initial place. Arrive later within the morning and you may be sweptback into a sweating hold up of boat engine exhaust and one-time farmers WHO currently sell trinkets and brew to the traveler hordes.Open 05:00 to 12:00, every day.AmphawaSet around a canal rimmed by healthy teak wood homes, Amphawa has become the floating market of selection for several weekending Bangkokians. although some farmers sell turn out within the early morning, most boat vendors sell ready foods, together with the mackerel and alternative food that Samut Songkhram province is known for. Boat journeys to close attractions area unit standard|a well-liked|a preferred} diversion  maybe too popular because the willal can want a ship automobile parking space every now and then. If Amphawa is just too thronged for you, close Bang Noi and Bang Nok Khwaek host smaller, additional ordered back floating markets.Open 07:00 to 16:00, Sabbatum and Sunday solely.

Tha KhaLocals are commercialism product by boat during this sleepy-eyed farm community for hundreds of years, and early morning at Tha Kha remains the simplest bet to expertise a conventional Thai floating market. you cannot beat Tha Kha’s ‘authentic’ scenes of weatherworn farmers row boats that brim with tropical fruits, dried chillies, recent caught fish and ready foods. take care to require a small boat cruise through canals squished between low-hanging palms and wild flowers on the way to farms wherever sugar is rendered from coconut sap.Open 05:00 to 12:00, Saturday, Sunday and full/new moon days solely

Canada Unveils Next-Generation Robotic

The Canadian-built robotic arms built for NASA's space shuttle fleet and the International Space Station are about to get two new siblings.

Last week, the Canadian Space Agency showed off the Next-Generation Canadarm (NGC) prototypes, which were unveiled after three years of development at Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates. The mechanical limbs are the successors to the shuttle fleet's Canadarm and station's Canadarm2, which played pivotal rolls in the station's construction for more than a decade.

The CSA and MDA plan to use this technology to position Canada for newer space business opportunities in areas such as in-orbit refuelling of satellites, said Gilles Leclerc, the agency's director-general of space exploration.

"We prepared all these new systems so that we will be well-positioned for the next thing in space," Leclerc said.

However, the Canadian government's $53.1 million contribution to the arm project (as well as supporting testbeds and simulators) has only brought them to the prototype stage so far. The arms will require more money for launch configurations and a ride to orbit.

Fuelling competition

One of the prototype arms spans 49 feet (15 meters), the same length as the space station's Canadarm2. But the new arm is lighter and has two sections that telescope into each other. This makes it more suitable to fold up inside the smaller spacecraft of the future.

The other NGC prototype arm is a miniature, at 8.5 feet long (2.58 meters). Like the station's Dextre robot, which it is modelled after, it will be able to refuel satellites, grapple tools and manipulate items such as blankets that cover satellites.

Manufacturer MDA has spent several years touting the benefits of satellite refuelling, which the company says would save money since satellites could be kept aloft longer if they can receive more after launch.

In March 2011, MDA signed a $280 million agreement with Intelsat SA to advance this concept, but the deal was scuppered in January 2012 after receiving lukewarm interest from potential customers.

NASA is also considering robotic refuelling. There is debate among Canadian space circles as to whether MDA could contribute to NASA's project, since it is a Canadian company.

Future government funding?

The CSA's contribution to NGC came from one-time stimulus funding it received in the federal budget between 2009 and 2011. Now, the agency is trying to figure out its priorities in the next few years amid large budget cuts, and with future government funds to NGC in flux.

The Canadian government recently began cutbacks to address its deficit, and CSA was among the affected departments. CSA faces a 25 percent budget drop to $315.3 million (CDN$309.7 million) in 2013-14. The year after, money will fall even further to $294.3 million (CDN$289.1 million.)

The agency is doing an internal review to determine its priorities with the lesser budget, said Leclerc. Work on the International Space Station will come first, since the Canadian government agreed to take part in the station until 2020, he said.

CSA's approach will be to "maintain signature technology to develop" while placing resources where it can, he said.

The agency's priorities will also be determined by an external review of the Canadian aerospace sector that should be submitted to the government in the coming months.

Canadarm's legacy

Canadarm has a cherished spot in Canadian space history because its success eventually led to the astronaut program.

The first Canadarm flew in space in 1981 on STS-2, the second space shuttle mission. NASA was so impressed by the robotics that it invited the Canadians to fly payload specialists on future shuttle missions.

The first Canadian, Marc Garneau, flew in 1984. He has since called it a "pay-to-play" arrangement.

Subsequently, Canada provided four more Canadarms to NASA between 1981 and 1993 (one was lost on Challenger), as well as the next-generation Canadarm2 that was installed on the space station in 2001.

Over the years, the arms have grappled satellites, hoisted astronauts and assisted on construction and repairs to the International Space Station.

One of the original Canadarms was converted into an orbiter boom sensor system, a 50-foot extension for shuttle arms built to inspection orbiter heat shields as part of safety procedures implemented after the loss of Columbia in 2003. The boom remains on the space station today, in the wake of the shuttle's retirement.

Three first-generation Canadarms remain. NASA kept one for engineering analysis and "potential future use," according to NASA spokesman Michael Curie.

A second arm is being refurbished at MDA before being shipped for display at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters near Montreal.

Launch Pad for Tiny Satellites

Astronauts on the International Space Station have transformed their high-flying laboratory into a new kind of launch pad for tiny satellites in a bid to boost student interest and access to space.

This month, the space station's Expedition 33 crew launched five tiny Cubesats, each only a few inches wide, using a small satellite orbital deployer from Japan's space agency JAXA. They were the first Cubesat satellites ever launched from the International Space Station, coming 2 1/2 years after NASA announced the CubeSat program."This was a learning experience for everyone," said Andres Martinez, the NASA Ames project manager for one of the satellites.

The cubesats were launched from the station's Japanese Kibo laboratory on Oct. 4, which also marked the 55th anniversary of the world's first satellite launch in 1957 that placed Russia's Sputnik 1 in orbit and ushered in the Space Age. 

"Fifty-five  years ago we launched the first satellite from Earth. Today we launched them from a spacecraft," space station commander Sunita Williams of NASA said on launch day to mark the 

moment. "Fifty years from now, I wonder where we'll be launching them from."

The JAXA satellite-deploying device arrived at the station aboard aJapanese cargo ship in July. Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide placed the deployer, which is about the size of a small rabbit cage, into a small airlock in the Kibo lab. Then, the astronaut sealed the airlock, opened it up to space, and commanded the station's Kibo robotic armto pick up the deployer and bring it outside for satellite deployment.

All told, the procedure took only four hours of astronaut time – with no spacewalk required.

"If you can imagine, deploying satellites from station can be quite risky," Martinez said. "We were going through that whole experience of conducting analysis to ensure this would be something safe to do from station, not only from the point of deployment but also taking up the satellites inside station."

Small satellite evolution

One of the cubesats launched from the space station was TechEdSat, a 10-centimeter-wide (3.9 inches) satellite that Martinez oversaw. Students at San Jose State University were responsible for most of the design and development work.

The students are operating a ground station where they will be able to listen to signals from TechEdSat. The satellite periodically sends out packets of data with information about its temperature, orbit and other parameters explaining its environment in space. The project cost about $30,000, excluding labor and launch costs.

"It's a huge STEM success," Martinez said, referring to NASA's program for attracting students to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. He added that NASA Ames made sure the students were prepared to meet the rigorous standards of the design and development process.

Anything that goes on to the space station must meet strict safety standards, including making sure there is no fire risk. Satellites in particular have items such as batteries and wires on board.

The students "were not put in a cage with a bunch of lions," Martinez said. Instead "we prepped them and worked with them, and a couple of [advisers] attended those meetings in person."

The satellite cube is expected to exceed its initial design lifetime of a month, but Martinez declined to give specifics because the final parameters for the design and orbit have not been analyzed yet.

Only one major objective will be unmet. Initially the satellite was supposed to compare OrbComm and Iridium communications techniques in space, but there was not enough time to meet the licensing requirements before the launch date.

Five satellites, one catapult

Of the other four satellites released Oct. 4, one of them, F-1, was a collaboration of Houston-based space hardware developer NanoRacks, Uppsala University in Sweden and FPT University in Vietnam.

The other three satellites were from institutions working with the JAXA. The satellites were called RAIKO, WE WISH and FITSAT-1. The latter satellite is designed to write messages in the sky inMorse code, with the aim of letting researchers test out optical communication techniques.

NASA chose to release the satellites in two batches to minimize the chances of collision with the station, Martinez said.

As the satellites have no maneuvering capability, NASA calculated a trajectory that would make it very unlikely that the cubes' orbit would ever intersect with that of the station.

With the success of the launches, NASA is on its way to reducing the expense of civilian access to space. It is cheaper to deploy a satellite from the space station than from Earth.

"The whole idea is about lowering cost," said Victor Cooley, the space station's Expedition 33/34 lead increment scientist, in a recent interview on NASA Television. "If we can lower the cost by these payloads being a secondary payload on a rocket ― or, in this case, HTV [a Japanese cargo vehicle] which is already carrying cargo to the station ― that makes it an even lower cost for the smallsats to be deployed."

There are no firm plans for when NASA and JAXA will do such an exercise again, but Martinez says there is a "very large pool" of students and engineers who are eager to take part.

Sandy Power Outages Spotted from Space

When Sandy's punishing winds and waves smacked into New Jersey and New York Oct. 29, they knocked out power to millions.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, more than 8 million people were thought to be without power. Some 90 percent of Long Island lost power, as well as numerous communities in New Jersey and all of Lower Manhattan ―which created strange views of the island's iconic skyline from neighboring boroughs and New Jersey.

The Suomi NPP satellite caught the eerie sight from above at 2:52 a.m. EDT (0652 UTC) this morning (Nov. 1). It stands in contrast to an image taken of the same area — New Jersey, New York and eastern Pennsylvania — Aug. 31.

The image was taken with the "day-night band" on the satellite's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). This band detects light between the green and near-infrared wavelengths of light, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. Filtering brings out features on the Earth's surface like gas flares and city lights — or, in this case, lack of lights.

 A close look at the images reveals the dark lower end of Manhattan. Long Island and New Jersey appear dimmer in the Nov. 1 image than in the Aug. 31 one.

"The barrier islands along the New Jersey coast, which are heavily developed with tourist businesses and year-round residents, are just barely visible in moonlight after the blackout," the Earth Observatory notes.

Con Edison has said that power should be restored to Lower Manhattan by Saturday. Restoring power to other locations could take longer.

New Satellite Will Be Space Mechanic, Gas Station

A young spaceflight company is building what it hopes will be the ultimate space handyman,

 a combination repair droid and orbital gas station to serve ailing satellites around Earth.

The company, called ViviSat, is planning to launch a fleet of specially built spacecraft that will be able to attach to other vehicles in Earth orbit that need a pick-me-up.

"We call them Mission Extension Vehicles," ViviSat chief operating officer Bryan McGuirk said Nov. 15 at the 2012 Satellite and Content Delivery Conference and Expo here. "Our job will be to dock with commercial satellites to extend their lives."

ViviSat initially plans to launch two Mission Extension Vehicles, or MEVs, but hopes to eventually expand the fleet to at least 10 craft. The spacecraft are being built by ATK, the company that made the solid rocket motors for NASA's now-retired space shuttles. 

ViviSat hopes to become the first company to offer such a satellite refurbishment service.

Currently, when communications satellites and other Earth-orbiting spacecraft run out of fuel, they are either sent up into a graveyard-like parking orbit, or de-orbited to destruct in Earth's atmosphere — or worse, left where they are to become space junk, posing a risk to living satellites. Yet aside from running out of fuel, the spacecraft are often still functioning.

"There is a demand for new solutions that can deal with the majority of satellites that can go to end of life with all their subsystems working," McGuirk said. "It is in essence a wasted opportunity for those operators to have to send them to deep space."

A visit from a ViviSat MEV could extend the life of a satellite by up to 10 years — typically three to five years — McGuirk said. The handyman satellites could also redeploy spacecraft, or position them in new orbits.

"We don't see a tailing off of opportunity," he said. "There are a huge number of satellites, many hundreds, in [geosynchronous orbit around Earth] today. There are a substantial number of satellites out there coming to retirement that would be candidates. There is a long-lasting opportunity for us to solve problems in the market."

The project could create a "body shop in the sky," said Lou Zacharilla, director of development for the Society of Satellite Professionals International, a satellite industry group. "I think it's an out-there, forward-thinking venture."

Many in the industry are curious to see whether ViviSat's business takes off.

"I think it's a creative idea," said Arnold Friedman, senior vice president of marketing and sales at the satellite company Space Systems/Loral. "There are pros and cons. We'll see what happens."

Even though ViviSat hasn't nailed down a launch date for its first MEVs, McGuirk said the company has dozens of conversations ongoing with potential customers.

"There's a lot of interest," McGuirk told SPACE.com. At first, many doubted that ViviSat's vision was achievable, but the technology involved is "nothing Earth-shattering," he said, and should not be beyond the company's abilities.

Such a venture could also prove a boon for the problem of space junk, which includes all the spent rocket stages and defunct satellites orbiting Earth that are at risk of colliding with working vehicles.

While McGuirk said cleaning up orbital debris isn't currently part of the company's business model, the issue could be a motivating factor for satellite operators to hire ViviSat to reduce their liability for dead spacecraft.

ViviSat isn't the only firm aiming to build orbital mechanics. Another aerospace company, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA), is also working on a new spacecraft that could refuel and repair aging vehicles in orbit.

Canada Funds Space Robot Projects Amid

Canada's government will chip in $5 million to help its space experts compete for robotics contracts, according to an announcement made in Montreal today (Feb. 8).

Scientists developing planetary rovers and other types of space robotics will receive the grant money over five years from the government's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Another $5 million will come from in-kind and cash contributions from several companies, including major space players such as Neptec and Canadarm maintainer Macdonald, Dettwiler and Associates. The Canadian Space Agency will offer use of its facilities.

While the United States, European Union and other countries are putting together their own robotics networks, the NSERC Canadian Field Robotics Network has an annual budget of $2 million, a large sum in Canadian terms.

"Canada can use 10 times as much, but you have to start somewhere," said Michael Jenkin, a York University researcher in robotics who is a part of the network.

"In the Canadian landscape, this is an exceptional investment. I think it is enough to be a significant contribution to making us better, and making us among the best – if not the best – in the world."

Although the Canadian Space Agency is facing deep budget cuts, the government recently deemed robotics as a priority area for economic stimulus funding. Ottawa  allocated $110 million to the agency in 2009 to principally develop rover and robotic arm prototypes, money that has all been spent.

New software and regular field tests

More than 50 percent of the new grant money will go to student stipends and scholarships. There also will be allocations for equipment, as well as for academics and companies to do field tests.

Working together could be tricky, given that many Canadian academics compete for research funds and that companies typically vie for the same CSA contracts. The collaborators, however, acknowledge this is just "the nature of life," said Gregory Dudek, a computer science researcher at McGill University, where the network is administered.

"There's always a temptation to compete, but it's better to collaborate against the challenges facing you," said Dudek, scientific director of the robotics network. He cited competition for contracts from Japan, South Korea, the European Union and the United States as the primary challenge for Canadian researchers.

Collaborations will take place most visibly through an annual field test to put robots through their paces. These will be similar to rover tests that took place at a simulated "Mars yard" near the CSA last year, but will expand to include environments such as in water.

These tests are essential because they expose limitations in a design, said Tim Barfoot, the head of the University of Toronto's autonomous space robotics lab. Fieldwork he oversaw with a rover in a Mars-like environment, for example, revealed a more efficient way for it to move around obstacles.

"Our approach to navigating robots fundamentally changed because of these observations," he said.

Additionally, the network partners will build a common set of tools – especially software tools – that everyone can use for the various projects.

"Not every flying robot, swimming robot and land robot can use the same software, obviously, but we’re trying to build bridges between the big players in Canada so they can share stuff, interoperate and work together," Dudek said.

CSA programming uncertain

The United States announced its own national robotics initiative in 2012. The project, which includes agencies ranging from NASA to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is supposed to create new applications for robotics technologies.

Canada's new government grant comes amid a period of program uncertaintyfor its space agency. The CSA faces a 20 percent budget cut this year. Its president, Steve MacLean, left Feb. 1 to join a quantum physics venture. Gilles Leclerc is now acting president.

In an October interview, Leclerc said he hoped the government would provide more money for robotics now that the stimulus funding is spent.

"We will see what the government does with the aerospace and space review, and how high space ranks as a priority," said Leclerc, then the CSA's director-general of space exploration.

"Somewhere in the future we can develop a rover [for flight], or at least provide signature technologies in robotics and vision systems. That's our Canadian heritage."

World's 1st Smartphone Satellite

A tiny satellite powered by a Google Nexus One smartphone has become the world's first "phonesat" to orbit Earth, its builders say.

The United Kingdom Space Agency's miniature STRaND-1 satellite launched into space on Monday (Feb. 25) is one of seven spacecraft riding into orbit aboard an Indian rocket.  It will test several new space technologies, including its WARP DRiVE — a novel space propulsion technology that will test a water-alcohol based thruster system. 

"We'd hate to pick up the bill on those roaming charges," UK Space Agency officials wrote via Twitter after the successful launch of the rocket, India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.

The STRaND-1 nanosatellite is a small, box-shaped Cubesat. It weighs just 9.4 pounds (4.3 kilograms) and is about nearly 12 inches (30 centimeters) long and 4 inches (10 cm) wide. It was built by the British Surrey Space Center and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., to serve as a spaceflight training and technology demonstration mission, officials said.

"This is a great example of the innovative approach that you can take with cubesats to develop and prove low cost commercial technologies for space while at the same time proving an exciting way of training and developing engineering skills," UK Space Agency's Chris Castelli, acting director of science, technology and exploration, said in a statement. "We wish the STRaND-1 team every success and look forward to seeing how the mission performs."

STRaND-1 combines its Google Nexus One Android-powered smartphone core with a Linux-based high-speed processor in order to control itself.

The nanosatellite is actually equipped with two new space propulsion systems. Its WARP DRiVE systems (short for Water Alcohol Resistojet Propulsion De-orbit Re-entry Velocity Experiment) will test a new way to intentionally destroy a satellite at the end of a mission by performing maneuvers that force the satellite to fall out of orbit. The second system is a set of eight electric "pulsed plasma thrusters" that will be tested during the mission, Surrey officials explained in a statement.

There are apps for that

The STRaND-1 nanosatellite is also carrying several apps in its smartphone brain that serve crucial roles in the mission, Surrey officials added. They were selected during a Surrey-run Facebook contest in 2012 and include:

iTesla will recorded the strength of the magnetic field around STRaND-1 while in orbit.

STRaND Data App will display the smartphone's satellite telemetry on the phone itself so it can be photographed by an onboard camera.

360 App will use the built-in camera of STRaND-1's smartphone to take photos of Earth from space. The public can request images from the STRanD-1 satellite through the 360 app website.

Scream in Space App is designed to use the speakers in STRaND-1's smartphone to test the theory popularized by the tagline for the 1979 science fiction film "Alien." Surrey officials explained that "the app will play videos of the best screams while in orbit and screams will be recorded using the smartphone's own microphone."

In the United States, NASA is also developing its own version of the smartphone satellite. The U.S. space agency's aptly named PhoneSat project is expected to launch on a demonstration mission later this year.

SpaceX Save Was Second Recent Comeback

The successful docking of SpaceX's Dragon capsule with the International Space Station 

on Sunday morning wrapped up the second major headache billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk had to tackle recently. Just three weeks ago, he took on the New York Times over a review of the Model S electric car, made by Musk's other technology company, Tesla.

Musk and a team of engineers with private spaceflight firm SpaceXscrambled to save the robotic Dragon capsule after a glitch following its launch toward the space station on Friday (Mar. 1).

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket delivered Dragon to orbit just fine on Friday (Mar. 1), but three of the capsule's four thruster "pods" that allow it to chase down the space station initially failed to activate as planned, imperiling the company's second contracted cargo delivery for NASA.

NASA cannot clear Dragon to approach the orbiting lab unless at least three thruster pods are working normally, so the SpaceX team raced to fix the problem. "It was a little frightening there," Musk told reporters during a news conference Friday.

Dragon back on track

Engineers determined that pressure levels were abnormally low in some of the tanks containing Dragon's oxidizer, which ignites the thrusters' fuel. That suggested a possible blockage or stuck valve, SpaceX officials said.

"We've been able to free that up by cycling the valves, essentially pressure-hammering the valves, to get that to loosen up," Musk said during Friday's press conference. "That looks like it's been effective."

Indeed, the misbehaving thruster pods came back online, and Dragon then executed an orbit-raising engine burn on Friday afternoon, clearing the way for the capsule's space station rendezvous Sunday (March 3) — just one day later than originally planned.

SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion contract to make 12 unmanned cargo flights to the International Space Station. Dragon is carrying 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of supplies and scientific experiments up on this mission, and it's slated to bring 2,300 pounds (1,043 kg) of gear back down to Earth on March 25.

Dragon vehicles experienced no major problems on their first three spaceflights — a trip to Earth orbit and back in December 2010, a historic demonstration mission in May 2012 during which Dragon became the first private vehicle to dock with the station, and SpaceX's first bona fide cargo run last October.

Tesla tussle

The Dragon glitch comes on the heels of a very public spat between Musk and the New York Times after a reporter wrote a harsh review of Tesla's new electric sedan, the Model S.

Times reviewer John Broder wrote that the Model S was an example of how "theory can be trumped by reality," and said the vehicle ran out of juice during a cold-weather trip from New York to Boston. Broder's article was accompanied by a photo of his Model S test car being ignominiously hoisted onto a tow truck.

Musk took umbrage with the Feb. 8 article and, as with his SpaceX missions, took the conversation to Twitter, 

Musk even published the vehicle log data from Broder's test drive to make his case. After several online back and forths between Musk and Broder, the New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan investigated the matter. She concluded that Broder's story was done "in good faith" but rebuked the reporter for keeping "casual and imprecise" notes.

Musk said on Twitter that his faith in the Times was "restored." Musk later claimed that Broder's article cost Tesla $100 million. "We did actually get a lot of cancellations as a result of The New York Times article," he told Bloomberg TV.

But like SpaceX, Tesla appears to have weathered the recent drama. Musk recently said that he expects Tesla to repay the $465 million that it borrowed from the U.S. Department of Energy in five years instead of ten.

6 Surprising Facts about World

The Atacama Large Millimeter submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the world's most powerful 

observatory for studying the universe at the long-wavelength millimeter and submillimeter range of light. It's designed to spot some of the most distant, ancient galaxies ever seen, and to probe the areas around young stars for planets in the process of forming.

The opening of the $1.3 billiontelescope array is being celebrated in an inauguration ceremony on Wednesday (March 13) at its observation site in Chile's Atacama desert. Here are six things you should know about the ambitious, not to mention immense, astronomy project.

1) It is ginormous

ALMA combines the forces of 66 radio antennas, most almost 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter, to create images comparable to those that could be obtained with a single 46,000-foot-wide (14,000 meters) dish.

The observatory is accurate enough to discern a golf ball 9 miles (15 kilometers) away.

2) A decade to build

The telescope is a collaboration of four continents, being sponsored by countries in North America, Europe and East Asia, with the cooperation of Chile. Planning and constructing the observatory took thousands of scientists and engineers from around the world more than 10 years.

3) ALMA is one high eye on the sky

The observatory is among the highest instruments on Earth, at an altitude of 16,570 feet (5,050 meters) above sea level. Its perch high atop the Chajnantor plateau puts it above much of the Earth's atmosphere, which blurs and distorts light.

4) It's in the driest place on Earth

ALMA's location in Chile's Atacama desert, the driest place in the world, means almost every night is clear of clouds and free of light-distorting moisture. Some weather stations in the desert have never received rain, and scientists think the Atacama got no significant rainfall between 1570 and 1971. 

5) ALMA dishes are nearly perfect

The surfaces of its dozens of radio dishes are almost perfect, with none deviating from an exact parabola by more than 20 micrometers (20 millionths of a meter, or about 0.00078 inches). This prevents any incoming radio waves from being lost, so that the resulting picture captures as much distant cosmic light as possible. The radio dishes, which weigh about 100 tons each, are made of ultra-stable CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) for the reflector base, with reflecting panels of rhodium-coated nickel.

6) This is one cool telescope — literally

The electronic detector called the "front end" that amplifies and converts the radio signals collected at each ALMA antenna must be kept at a chilling 4 Kelvin ( minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 269 degrees Celsius), to prevent introducing noise to the signal.

Ultimately, the ground-breaking observatory promises to reveal many new secrets of the cosmos — not to mention some really pretty pictures.

Rocky Road to Building the Next Mars Rover

The next generation of Mars rovers has arrived in Hanksville, 

a tiny desert town in southern Utah. Over the next three days, 10 college teams will compete in the Mars Society University Rover Challenge, using vehicles they have designed to accomplish tough tasks, similar to those faced by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, now in the midst of its two-year assignment on Mars.

And just as NASA has, these students have overcome a variety of challenges in reaching their destination. Money, time and mechanical problems have presented obstacles — giving these future space engineers a big dose of reality.

"The biggest challenge was to gather enough money to send our rover and team to the U.S.," Remigiusz Laszczak, from the Rzeszow University of Technology (SKNL) in Poland, told us. As first-time competitors, these students have high hopes for their rover —so high, in fact, that they’ve dubbed it “Legendary.”

Unlike the other teams that consist mostly of engineering and physics majors, SKNL members are aviation students who have built model planes and drones  for national and international contests.

The team is one of three that have made the trip from Poland.

"We didn't expect that the project would cost so much," Laszczak said. Each team had a budget of $15,000 for their rover — a sum that they had to raise themselves, along with money for travel. For other teams, the biggest challenge was time.

The team from the Bialystok Technical University in Poland said it raised the money for the project with just a month before its finished rover Hyperion was due to be flown to the United States. They made it but said they'll be conducting most of their tests on-site in Utah. Their enthusiasm remains high.

"We have building robots  in our blood," said Piotr Ciura, Hyperion's coordinator.

Inspiration and innovation

The teams have been inspired by Mars rover Curiosity, as well as by winners from past University Rover Challenges. With two previous competitions under its belt, the team from the Wrocław University of Technology in Poland has come up with several innovative features for its new rover — dubbed “Scorpio” — including a new wheel configuration.

"The front and the rear ones are light and rigid constructions, while the middle ones are made of abrasion- and tear-resistant fabric filled with granulated polystyrene," said Konrad Cop, a member of team Scorpio. The new wheels provide an optimal balance of traction, lighter weight and shock absorption to navigate the terrain challenge across the rocky desert, he said.

The Helios team from Cornell University built a rocker-suspension design, inspired by NASA's Rocker-Bogie system found in its Mars rovers. 

"We used a combined suspension system of rockers in the front of the rover and an independent spring suspension in the back," Jane Kim of the Helios team said. Their adaptation of the NASA system allows Helios' four wheels to stay in contact with the ground, while significantly reducing the weight of the suspension system, she said. Vehicles may not exceed 50 kilograms.

Inspiration also comes from imagination.

"We also try to get ideas for how to build a robot by asking the question, ‘What is every single possible solution to the given problem?’, and then we eliminate or combine ideas until we think we have the best solution," said Chris Howard, leader of the robotics  team from the University of Washington.

But things don't always go as planned. Despite adequate funding and a realistic project schedule, the team from the University of Washington ran into a bit of trouble when building their rover, called "Frozen Icarus."

They hit a low point when they learned the water-jet company contracted to make parts for their robot's arm would deliver the parts four weeks later than expected, leaving just a week for testing before the competition. Then, the 3-D printed motor mounts for the drive wheels suddenly collapsed — just two weeks before the competition, Howard said.

Yet Howard still refers to the rover as "my baby." And his baby has an arm with the capability to "go infinitely through itself" — an intriguing feature that will be revealed once the competition gets underway.

All teams have their eyes on the prizes, which include cash, an opportunity to present at the annual International Mars Society Convention in Colorado this summer, and a year’s worth of bragging rights.

Astronaut Drives Rover from Space Station

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station successfully operated a rover 

Earth's surface Friday (July 26), helping lay the foundation for future human-robot partnerships that could push the boundaries of planetary exploration.

While zipping around Earth several hundred miles above the planet's surface, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano drove a 220-pound (100 kilograms) rover across a moon-mimicking landscape here at NASA's Ames Research Center, even ordering the robot to deploy a simulated film-based radio telescope antenna.

Friday's test was the second in a three-part series designed to help engineers and mission planners understand how the activities of humans and robots can be coordinated to maximize the reach and efficiency of planetary exploration missions. (The first run took place June 17 here at Ames, and the third is slated to occur next month.)

"I think that the future of exploration is such that you'll have to have both humans and robots working together," said Terry Fong, human exploration telerobotics project manager and director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames, which designed and manages the tests.

"It doesn't necessarily mean humans and robots always closely coupled in space or even time; you could have robots working ahead of humans, robots working in parallel, robots following up," Fong told SPACE.com. "But part of that is really trying to understand, well, if you're going to build these systems, what do you need? How do you build them?"

The tests at Ames simulate a mission in which astronauts parked at Earth-moon Lagrange point 2 — a gravitationally stable spot located about 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) above the moon's surface — operate a rover on the lunar farside.

Such a mission would have many benefits, advocates say. For example, the rover could deploy a radio telescope antenna, which would return great data to astronomers thanks to the "quiet zone" found on the moon's farside. The teleoperated rover could also collect ancient farside rocks for delivery back to labs on Earth.

"The twofer that you would get out of this for science is pretty exciting," said Jack Burns, director of the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder, which developed the mission concept.

Burns hopes such a mission will launch in 2021, on the first manned flight of NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket. The tests at Ames — which use the four-wheel, 4.5-foot-tall (1.4 meters) K10 rover — are steps toward making that dream come true, he said.

"We have demonstrated for the first time that an astronaut can operate a rover and do some relatively sophisticated commands " It's baby steps, but it's a good set of baby steps."

Japan Launching Talking Robot & Cargo Into Space

Japan will launch a new cargo ship with tons of supplies and one small, talking robot 

 toward the International Space Station on Saturday (Aug. 3), and you can watch the liftoff live online.

The fourth unmanned H-2 Transfer Vehicle, or HTV-4, is scheduled to blast off from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan at 3:48 p.m. EDT (1948 GMT; 4:48 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 4 Japan time). You can watch launch coverage on SPACE.com here beginning at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), courtesy of NASA TV and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. 

One of the precious items on the cargo ship is the Kirobo robot, a small humanoid automaton billed by its creators as a "robot astronaut" that is designed to talk with astronauts in space, as well as people on the ground. It stands about 13.4 inches tall (34 centimeters) and speaks Japanese.

Kirobo is expected to speak with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who is due to launch to the International Space Station later this year in November. It is one of two robots built by the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology as part of the Kibo Robot Project, which seeks to develop new technologies for robot-human interaction for long space missions.

Both robots are equipped with voice-recognition technology, face recognition, a camera and emotion recognition and natural language processing. The Toyota Motor Corp., Robo Garage and the public relations company Dentsu Inc. are partners in the project.

"I want to help create a world where humans and robots can live together," Kirobo said when asked what its dream is by an official from Toyota Motor Corp., during the Kibo Robot Project's press unveiling in late June.

The project's second robot, called Mirata, will remain on Earth to aid project engineers if problems develop with Kirobo in space. Kirobo is due to return to Earth in December 2014, project officials have said.

In addition to Kirobo, JAXA's HTV-4 is carrying about 3.5 tons of supplies, food and equipment for scientific experiments, which the crew of the space station's current Expedition 36 will offload when the cargo ship finally arrives on Aug. 9.

The HTV line of spacecraft is also known as "Kounotori," which means "White Stork" in Japanese. The supply vessels are about 33 feet long by 14.4 feet wide (10 by 4.4 meters) and can carry 6 tons of supplies to the orbiting lab.

Like Europe's robotic Automated Transfer Vehicle and Russia's unmanned Progress spacecraft, HTV vehicles are built for one-time use. Once these spacecraft have delivered their cargo, space station astronauts fill them with trash and send them off to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

That's in contrast to SpaceX's reusable Dragon cargo capsule, which is designed to splash down in the ocean and be retrieved by boat-borne crews. California-based SpaceX has successfully completed two resupply missions to the station using Dragon and its Falcon 9 rocket, and the company will make 10 more such flights under its $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

NASA also signed a $1.9 billion deal with Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. to make eight flights with its robotic Cygnus spacecraft and Antares rocket. Cygnus — which is expendable like the HTV, ATV and Progress — is slated to launch toward the space station for the first time in mid-September.

Saturday's launch will mark the fourth space mission for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's HTV program. HTV-1 launched in September 2009, HTV-2 took off in January 2011 and HTV-3 blasted off in July 2012.