Three new crew members reach the International Space Station
and a really interesting way to look at our own moon.
I'm Benjamin Higginbotham and this your
Spacevidcast SpacePod for Dec. 21, 2010.
On Wednesday, December 15, 2010
a Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off carrying the next three members
bound for the International Space Station.
[video] Five seconds
Engines at maximum thrust and
Lift off of the Soyuz TMA-20 as
Cady Coleman, Paolo Nespoli and Dmitry Kondratyev head toward the
International Space Station
Ben: Then on Friday the 17th, the capsule docked with the space station
at 20:11 UTC
[video] Range rate nominal, and contact.
Capture confirmed on display 44.
Docking confirmed at 11:11pm Moscow time. 2:11pm CST
over the Southwest corner of the Republic of Mali in Western Africa.
Ben: A couple of hours later the expanded Expedition 26/27 crew
opened the hatch and ingressed into the station.
[video] The hatch is opened officially at 5:02pm CST.
Dmitry Kondratyev arrives in the International Space Station
in the Rassvet module.
Cady Coleman next
greeted by Aleksandr Kaleri.
And Paolo Nespoli
receiving greetings from Aleksandr Kaleri.
The International Space Station back to a six person crew.
All of the crew members now on board. The official hatch opening time 5:02pm CST, 2:02am Moscow time
on Saturday Expedition 26 doubling in size.
Ben: The three person crew of Soyuz TMA-20
Dmitry Kondratyev, Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli
represent partner organizations of Roscosmos, NASA, and the European Space Agency
in the ISS program.
While the US and Russia added more people to the space station,
China launched a rocket to add more satellites to their upcoming GPS constellation
this last Friday.
A new satellite navigation and positioning network, or COMPASS system,
was launched aboard a Long March 3A rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center
at 20:20 UTC
This is the second of what will be thiry-five satellites
providing both civilian and military GPS data to China.
Being that we just saw a lunar eclipse. How about a totally new way of looking at the Moon?
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO
is orbiting the moon creating the most precise and complete map-to-date
of the Moon's complex surface.
Originally launched to help scout out landing sites for the nearly defunct
Constellation program, LRO remains in lunar orbit gathering data.
Using an instrument called the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, or LOLA,
the spacecraft sends a single laser pulse down to the lunar surface through an
optical element that splits the pulse into five beams.
These five beams then strike the surface of the Moon and depending how long it takes
for each one to return, LOLA is able to map out what the surface terrain looks like.
The end results are some psychedelic pictures of our Moon
By artificially adding color, we can get a good idea as to what the surface looks like.
The red ares indicate high elevation, whereas blue is low.
You can get more pictures and video at NASA's LRO website.
Ever wish you could get rocket and shuttle launch notifications sent right to your iPhone?
Maybe a countdown to the next launch on your iPod Touch?
Well now you can.
Mission Clock is a $5.00 application available now in the iTunes Apple Store for iOS devices.
This awesome, space-geek app allows you to see what upcoming missions are launching,
when they'll actually launch and even get mission details.
It's a great showpiece to help get your friends excited about spaceflight
and for the next 24 hours, Spacevidcast is giving away
ten copies to ten lucky winners.
It's easy to enter. Simply send out a tweet with a link to this video, and #Spacevidcast
and you're automatically entered.
The contest starts Dec. 21, 2010 at midnight UTC
and ends at 23:59 UTC the same day. So you have nearly 24 hours to enter and win.
If you think that's a cool prize you should see what we're giving away during our
live show this Friday at 0200 UTC.
It's going to be awesome and I know we'll see you there.