NASA’s Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at 11:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

All told, the flight test lasted about six minutes: the launch from the newly modified Launch Pad 39B, a two-minute powered flight, and then a splashdown of the rocket’s booster stage nearly 150 miles downrange. (more…)

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NASA’s  new Ares I-X  test rocket is on the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for its debut launch scheduled for October 27.

The Ares I-X  is a prototype for the Ares 1 rocket NASA plans to use to launch its shuttle successor, the Orion spacecraft. The flight test will provide NASA with an opportunity to test and prove flight characteristics, hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I.

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Ever wonder if there is water on the moon?

NASA does.

In fact, NASA is so curious that it’s going to “bomb” the moon tomorrow morning in hopes of creating a debris cloud that can be analyzed for water content.

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Google Earth Application Maps Carbon's Course

Google Earth now has an application to show Earth’s carbon dioxide cycle and can show carbon dioxide in different layers of the atmosphere. Google recently held a contest to show scientific data using KML, the data format used for Google Earth. Tyler Erickson from Michigan Tech Research Institute responded to the call, and with help from NASA-funded researcher Anna Michalak of the University of Michigan, created an application to display the carbon cycle.

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Chandrayaan-1 moon mission is over, project Director M Annadurai said today

“The contact was lost at 01.30 IST as the deep space network (DSN) at Byalalu, about 40 km from Bangalore, received the data from the lunarcraft during the previous orbit up to 00.25 IST,” according to an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) statement.

Radio contact with India’s first lunarcraft Chandrayaan-1 was abruptly lost on Saturday, ISRO Spokesman said.

All communication links with the only indian satellite orbiting the moon have been lost. The US $ 80 million spacecraft had experienced a technical problem when one of its sensor malfunctioned.

Chandrayaan is India’s first mission to the Moon launched by Indian space agency ISRO.

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The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has come out with an amazing new map that covers 99% of the Earth’s surface and highlights elevations of almost every place on the planet.

NASA created the Global Digital Elevation Model using around 1.3 million images collected by a Japanese camera aboard its spacecraft – Terra.

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For NASA’ prestigious Create the future Design Contest, designer Tai Chiem came up with this Movito electric ccooter. Integrating clean and green technologies along with a stylish design, Movito feature sleek aerodynamics and an ability to transform itself from a scooter to a highly efficient pod-like urban vehicle.

Powered by an all-electric engine with daft rechargeable batteries and a completely detachable base, the lightweight Movito is not just a cool electric scooter for the future and today’s roads, but also an efficient and clean carrier for your daily commuting.

Although it could be improved upon and despite being just a prototype for the moment, Tai’s Movito seems to be that close to mass production. Looks like a winner all the way, isn’t it? [via Coroflot]

The Phoenix Mars Mission is a true partnership between the government, academia and the industry that was designed to study the history of water and the habitabillity potential on the Martian arctic’s ice-rich soil.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TaP8YMM524[/youtube]

If everything goes as planned, on Sunday – May 25th, the Phoenix space craft is going to land on Mars. It will enter the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph and after finishing a set of events it should land on three “feet” at 5mph. Let’s hope everything will go smoothly and we’ll be able to find out more about the red planet.

If you want to be informed, this is NASA’s landing blog.

via Courier-Journal