... December 24, 1998 . Mars Climate Orbiter Launches . Credit: Courtesy NASA . Explanation: Looking down from atop a Delta II rocket blasting skyward , solid fuel boosters fall away (left) and the Earth's limb slides into view. These pictures from the launch of the Mars Climate Orbiter were taken as it climbed away from Cape Canaveral Air Station Space Launch Complex 17 on December 11. ... About APOD > . ... NASA Technical Rep.: ... A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC . ...

... It was designed to observe the solar wind approaching Earth, from a position near the Lagrangian point L1, and it is part of the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Initiative . ... The original plan called for "Wind" to approach its final station over two years, undergoing two close encounters with the Moon to boost its speed. ... If however the object is moving , the encounter is not symmetric, and in the end the spacecraft may have gained or lost speed, depending on its trajectory. ...

... Southern Mars . 2.12.1999 . ... Massive stars -- upwards of tens of times the mass of the Sun - profoundly affect their galactic environment. Churning and mixing the clouds of gas and dust between the stars, they leave their mark on the compositions and locations of future generations of stars and star systems. ... This star, though, somehow ejects energetic "bullets" of high-energy particles, appearing as red streaks toward the lower right of the this image. ... Runaway Star . ... 1999 2000 . ...

... Data Analysis SAS News What is SAS? ... Size of the visibility bins . ... In order to determine the visibility, the sky is divided into bins of approximately equal solid angle. ... The number of bins per strip is: Strips 0 to 2: 180 bins Strips 3 to 7: 175 bins Strips 8 to 12: 170 bins Strips 13 to 17: 155 bins Strips 18 to 22: 140 bins Strips 23 to 27: 115 bins Strips 28 to 32: 90 bins Strips 33 to 37: 60 bins Strips 38 to 42: 30 bins Strips 43 to 44: 5 bins Strips 45: 1 bin . ...

... It was designed to observe the solar wind approaching Earth, from a position near the Lagrangian point L1, and it is part of the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Initiative . ... The original plan called for "Wind" to approach its final station over two years, undergoing two close encounters with the Moon to boost its speed. ... If however the object is moving , the encounter is not symmetric, and in the end the spacecraft may have gained or lost speed, depending on its trajectory. ...

... WISE is achieving 5sigma point source sensitivities better than 0.08, 0.11, 1, and 6 mJy in unconfused regions on the ecliptic in bands centered at wavelengths of 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 mum. ... The WISE All-Sky Release Source Catalog is available in compressed (gzip or bzip2) ascii form. ... Users should be aware that the Catalog table is extremely large. ... For complete documentation of the WISE All-Sky Release Source Catalog and the All-Sky Data Release, please see the Explanatory Supplement . ...

... December 8, 1996 . Degas Ray Crater on Mercury . ... Explanation : Like the Earth's Moon, Mercury is scarred with craters, testifying to an intense bombardment during the early history of the Solar System. ... In the above mosaic the bright rays emanating from the 27 mile wide Degas crater almost appear to be painted on . The rays consist of light colored material blasted out during the crater's formation. Numerous smaller, younger craters are seen superposed on the Degas crater itself. ...

... Heracles Triplane and Aerospace Systems . The key characteristics of two-stage aerospace systems are determined according to speed and carrying capacity of the aircraft-carrier used . ... So the SPIRAL system hypersonic carrier was expected to launch the second stage by weight 63 tons at a speed corresponding to 6M; whereas launching weight of the MAKS system orbital stage with the use of the An-225 MRIYA heavy subsonic aircraft reaches 275 tons, and the HERACLES aircraft - 450 tons. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Armagh Planetarium . ... Space Flight . Human Exploration . Robot Exploration . ... Originally Discovery had been set to launch on 1 November, but this was delayed when fatigue cracks were found in the structure of its External Tank. ... A little bit of trivia is that Discovery has actually made the only shuttle-e