Not sure how what they wrote doesn't help. It's like TV where the image displayed is scanned line by line. Just in this case, the scanning is much slower.
"The two views of Mars Odyssey in this image were acquired a little under 7.5 seconds apart as Odyssey receded from a close flyby of Mars Global Surveyor. The geometry of the flyby (see Figure 1) and the camera's way of acquiring an image line-by-line resulted in the two views of Odyssey in the same frame. The first view (right) was taken when Odyssey was about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from Global Surveyor and moving more rapidly than Global Surveyor was rotating, as seen from Global Surveyor. A few seconds later, Odyssey was farther away -- about 135 kilometers (84 miles) -- and appeared to be moving more slowly. In this second view of Odyssey (left), the Mars Orbiter Camera's field-of-view overtook Odyssey.
Deltas (II and IV) and Atlas (V) are still much newer and going strong. I don't think there will be a shortage of rockets for military satellites in the near future.
But it's not the last Titan, just the last to launch from Cape Canaveral. According to the article on Florida Today: "This Titan is the last of a family of 168 to be launched from Cape Canaveral. One last flight is scheduled to take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California."
Quite the powerhorse. Congrats to all who worked on it over the years for jobs well done.
The first and original arm has joints (shoulder, elbow, wrist) which allows it to manipulate and move the various pieces of the ISS it installs and other payloads (e.g. HST). But unfortunately, it is not long enough to view the complete underside of the shuttle (it could have seen the damage on the wing of Columbia, but that mission didn't have an arm installed).
The new arm - which is built from the spare booms from the original one - does not have joints, just solid pieces to link the booms together (although much of the hardware was already in existence, which is partly why MDA won the contract. It is a solid 50 foot extension with a camera/sensing package on the end.
Essentially, the original arm (the one in the far side of the picture or on the right of the shuttle looking out of the cabin window toward the tail) will grab the extension boom (Orbiter Boom Sensing System or OBSS) at the Grapple Fixture (the thing that looks like it's sticking out of the arm and the close end) and will simply swing it under the Shuttle. The camera/sensing package at the end of the boom will survey each tile on the bottom of the shuttle for damage. I can't find the animation somewhere, but Discovery Channel just did a segment on it.
When complete, the original arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System or SRMS or Canadarm) will re-berth the OBSS on its side of the payload bay and will then go about the rest of the mission as normal - installing payloads, moving astronauts around on EVAs, etc.
I've heard of Irish Cream, Hazelnut and Vanilla flavoured coffee, but I must say when Starbucks starts offering their butter/"topping" flavoured coffees I'm leaving the country.
As was said in an earlier post, Atlantis is being scheduled for it's own mission on July 12, but it will be on the Launch Pad for the Discovery launch to support a resuce mission if required.
Even for the Columbia mission, they could have gotten another shuttle ready to fly (all testing, etc.) in 28 days if all testing was done without failures and the minimum required was done.
The current plan is to have Atlantis with basic testing done and final turnaround and pre-launch testing should be able to be done within 7 days if necessary. This is well within the window of a typical 16 day mission which can be stretched to 28 days in emergency situations (by rationaing food, fuel, etc.) or even longer with a bailout at the ISS.
What they have done is implemented the recommendations from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) report.
With respect to the Orbiter itself (aside from management and flight rules), the main changes are the following:
1) Redesign the insulation foam on the external tank around the area of the bipod struts where the foam detached on STS-107.
2) Get the makers of the Canadarm (robotic arm) - MDA Space Missions - to design and build a second arm that will be used to inspect the underside of the Shuttle for damage when it reached orbit. Check a picture of the Shuttle with two arms at the Jan 26, 2005 press release.
3) Always launch missions during the day to the ISS only (hence the Hubble discussions) and have a spare Orbiter (in this case Atlantis) ready to go for rescue missions.
Perhaps, but the only problem is that 14 or so other countries have signed on and have been funding (granted, not nearly to the same extent) the ISS. And with the exception of the Russians and the Canadians, none of their hardware that has been sitting in the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center has been installed yet.
The US has discussed not building any more of the ISS after "Core Complete" is done (being the last US module - Node 2), but I don't think that the International partners in the "International" Space Station will be too pleased if that happens.
Besides, most of the really good research won't be able to happen until the European and Japanese labs get up there anyway.
Actually, I was quite impressed by the accuracy and detail of rural Canada in the map. For example, my family has a summer home in the middle of central Ontario and while Mapquest doesn't even know it exists and Mappoint (which I'm almost instantly starting to like less now even though you can drag the map there too) has the lake as a shapeless blue blob, GoogleMaps has all the roads with accurate names (including unnamed gravel roads to nowhere) and fantastically detailed shorelines and islands to scale.
We have been taken over -- 'conquered', if you will...
...
And I, for one, welcome our new pod-placing/nuclear-war causing Overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Slashdot contributor, I can be helpful in rounding up others to...toil in their underground pod caves."
Only recently have Pentiums and other processors of the same level been qualified for radiation hardening in space applications (at the manned-spaceflight altitudes, which are full of radiation). The current level of technology has circuit pathways that are too small and are more easily affected by the exposure. (http://www.sandia.gov/media/rhp.htm --> decision to redesign the Pentium was only in Dec '98 and it was expected to take 2-3 years.)
Either way, whatever they eventually design to replace the Shuttle after its decommissioning in 2010 (or shortly thereafter) will likely be designed with 1990's technology.
Slashdot Mirror
Typo... "...At issue is seven patents... Five of which..."
Yeah...and now there's an unfortunate precedent in NTPs favour showing they can be successful at it.
Quite the business model...
"The two views of Mars Odyssey in this image were acquired a little under 7.5 seconds apart as Odyssey receded from a close flyby of Mars Global Surveyor. The geometry of the flyby (see Figure 1) and the camera's way of acquiring an image line-by-line resulted in the two views of Odyssey in the same frame. The first view (right) was taken when Odyssey was about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from Global Surveyor and moving more rapidly than Global Surveyor was rotating, as seen from Global Surveyor. A few seconds later, Odyssey was farther away -- about 135 kilometers (84 miles) -- and appeared to be moving more slowly. In this second view of Odyssey (left), the Mars Orbiter Camera's field-of-view overtook Odyssey.
This is because there used to be two teams in Hamilton, the Tigers and the Wildcats. They merged in 1950.
Deltas (II and IV) and Atlas (V) are still much newer and going strong. I don't think there will be a shortage of rockets for military satellites in the near future.
But it's not the last Titan, just the last to launch from Cape Canaveral. According to the article on Florida Today: "This Titan is the last of a family of 168 to be launched from Cape Canaveral. One last flight is scheduled to take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California."
Quite the powerhorse. Congrats to all who worked on it over the years for jobs well done.
Good question. Sorry for not elaborating before.
The first and original arm has joints (shoulder, elbow, wrist) which allows it to manipulate and move the various pieces of the ISS it installs and other payloads (e.g. HST). But unfortunately, it is not long enough to view the complete underside of the shuttle (it could have seen the damage on the wing of Columbia, but that mission didn't have an arm installed).
The new arm - which is built from the spare booms from the original one - does not have joints, just solid pieces to link the booms together (although much of the hardware was already in existence, which is partly why MDA won the contract. It is a solid 50 foot extension with a camera/sensing package on the end.
Essentially, the original arm (the one in the far side of the picture or on the right of the shuttle looking out of the cabin window toward the tail) will grab the extension boom (Orbiter Boom Sensing System or OBSS) at the Grapple Fixture (the thing that looks like it's sticking out of the arm and the close end) and will simply swing it under the Shuttle. The camera/sensing package at the end of the boom will survey each tile on the bottom of the shuttle for damage. I can't find the animation somewhere, but Discovery Channel just did a segment on it.
When complete, the original arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System or SRMS or Canadarm) will re-berth the OBSS on its side of the payload bay and will then go about the rest of the mission as normal - installing payloads, moving astronauts around on EVAs, etc.
I've heard of Irish Cream, Hazelnut and Vanilla flavoured coffee, but I must say when Starbucks starts offering their butter/"topping" flavoured coffees I'm leaving the country.
As was said in an earlier post, Atlantis is being scheduled for it's own mission on July 12, but it will be on the Launch Pad for the Discovery launch to support a resuce mission if required. Even for the Columbia mission, they could have gotten another shuttle ready to fly (all testing, etc.) in 28 days if all testing was done without failures and the minimum required was done. The current plan is to have Atlantis with basic testing done and final turnaround and pre-launch testing should be able to be done within 7 days if necessary. This is well within the window of a typical 16 day mission which can be stretched to 28 days in emergency situations (by rationaing food, fuel, etc.) or even longer with a bailout at the ISS.
With respect to the Orbiter itself (aside from management and flight rules), the main changes are the following:
1) Redesign the insulation foam on the external tank around the area of the bipod struts where the foam detached on STS-107.
2) Get the makers of the Canadarm (robotic arm) - MDA Space Missions - to design and build a second arm that will be used to inspect the underside of the Shuttle for damage when it reached orbit. Check a picture of the Shuttle with two arms at the Jan 26, 2005 press release.
3) Always launch missions during the day to the ISS only (hence the Hubble discussions) and have a spare Orbiter (in this case Atlantis) ready to go for rescue missions.
Perhaps, but the only problem is that 14 or so other countries have signed on and have been funding (granted, not nearly to the same extent) the ISS. And with the exception of the Russians and the Canadians, none of their hardware that has been sitting in the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center has been installed yet.
The US has discussed not building any more of the ISS after "Core Complete" is done (being the last US module - Node 2), but I don't think that the International partners in the "International" Space Station will be too pleased if that happens.
Besides, most of the really good research won't be able to happen until the European and Japanese labs get up there anyway.
Actually, I was quite impressed by the accuracy and detail of rural Canada in the map. For example, my family has a summer home in the middle of central Ontario and while Mapquest doesn't even know it exists and Mappoint (which I'm almost instantly starting to like less now even though you can drag the map there too) has the lake as a shapeless blue blob, GoogleMaps has all the roads with accurate names (including unnamed gravel roads to nowhere) and fantastically detailed shorelines and islands to scale.
Only recently have Pentiums and other processors of the same level been qualified for radiation hardening in space applications (at the manned-spaceflight altitudes, which are full of radiation). The current level of technology has circuit pathways that are too small and are more easily affected by the exposure. (http://www.sandia.gov/media/rhp.htm --> decision to redesign the Pentium was only in Dec '98 and it was expected to take 2-3 years.)
Either way, whatever they eventually design to replace the Shuttle after its decommissioning in 2010 (or shortly thereafter) will likely be designed with 1990's technology.