NCS News

In the small hours of tomorrow morning, NASA’s LCROSS spacecraft will crash land on the moon. The craft will be deliberately hard-landed in two sections providing data about the composition of the lunar surface. NASA TV will provide live coverage and you can find out more on the Spaceweather site.

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Tomorrow’s edition of Science will reveal confirmation of the recent detections of water molecules on the moon as well as possible mechanisms by which water ice could be gathering in polar craters. Water had been detected in the lunar samples brought back by the Apollo astronauts but this was thought to be due to contamination [...]

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… today, forty years ago. On 20th July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on another planet. How will you celebrate today?
New Scientist has compiled a top ten of Apollo music for your 40th anniversary party. Or why not delve into the history with the NCS course The Story Of [...]

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The celebrations of forty years since the Apollo 11 moon landing are heating up and now we have a new moon mission on its way. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took off from Cape Canaveral on Thursday and will photograph the lunar surface in higher resolution than ever before. Images with a resolution of 1 m [...]

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The International Space Station crew is awaiting the arrival of three new members that will usher in an era of six-person crews aboard the orbiting laboratory. Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft Wednesday morning from the Baikonur Cosmodrome [...]

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The New Curiosity Shop has just launched a new kind of course. A mix between a science course and a history course, The Story Of Apollo will take learners back to the cold war era to examine the cultural factors and the engineering that made possible the US moon missions and the eventual landing of [...]

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NASA has announced the names of the researchers who will start the Lunar Science Institute. The seven scientists will head research teams in a number of areas of lunar science, all directed towards making the best use of future lunar exploration. While the engineering work on a new manned spacecraft system is under review, possibly [...]

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Spacecraft watchers have found a new object to track as it orbits the Earth. Edward Light saw an orbiting tool bag using 10×50 binoculars as it sailed over his backyard in Lakewood, [...]

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On Friday, August 1st, the Moon will pass directly in front of the Sun producing a total solar eclipse.

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Just before 1am this morning (BST), NASA’s Phoenix lander successfully landed in the Arctic region of Mars. High on the list of exploration targets for Phoenix is the search for frozen water.
The photograph shows Phoenix parachuting down to its landing site and was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which was overhead at the time.
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