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51 years ago today, the Atlas rocket boosters that John Glenn, inside his Friendship 7 capsule, was strapped to the top of ignited. Millions of Americans watched as the resulting 350,000 pounds of thrust vibrated the vehicle that was about to take the first American into orbit around the Earth.

CAPCOM (Capsule Communicator): 3… 2… 1… 0.
John Glenn: Roger. The clock is operating. We’re underway.

Minutes later, John Glenn became the fifth human in space and the first American to enter Earth orbit. Previously, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom became the first and second, respectively, Americans in space; however, John Glenn was the first American to reach the important milestone of completing orbits of the Earth.

For the next 4 hours and 55 minutes, John Glenn completed three orbits of the Earth, reaching speeds greater than 17,000 miles per hour. NASA was still concerned about the effects of spaceflight on humans and this was the longest one an American astronaut had been subjected to yet. John Glenn remarked a number of times during the mission that he felt just fine, and was rather enjoying himself.

Five minutes into the mission:

John Glenn: Oh, that view is tremendous!

John Glenn witnessed three sunsets from space during the flight.

John Glenn: The sky above is absolutely black, completely black. I can see stars though up above.

John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. At this, MARK, at this present time, I still have some clouds visible below me, the sunset was beautiful. It went down very rapidly. I still have a brilliant blue band clear across the horizon almost covering my whole window. The redness of the sunset I can still see through some of the clouds way over to the left of my course. Over.

From his fantastic vantage point, he observed dust storms and fires in Africa and the lights of Perth, Australia.

And then there was his “fireflies”, which he first noticed at about 1 hour and 15 minutes into the flight:

John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. I’ll try to describe what I’m in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles, that are brilliantly lit up like they’re luminescent. I never saw anything like it. They round a little: they’re coming by the capsule, and they look like little stars. A whole shower of them coming by.

They swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window and they’re all brilliantly lighted. They probably average maybe 7 or 8 feet apart., but I can see them all down below me, also.

CAPCOM: Roger, Friendship Seven. Can you hear any impact with the capsule? Over.

John Glenn: Negative, negative. They’re very slow; they’re not going away from me more than maybe 3 or 4 miles per hour. They’re going at the same speed I am approximately. They’re only very slightly under my speed. Over.

They do, they do have a different motion, though, from me because they swirl around the capsule and then depart back the way I am looking.

Are you receiving? Over.

There are literally thousands of them.

These “fireflies”, as Glenn called them after the mission, were later determined to be ice crystals that would accumulate on the craft on the dark side of the Earth and then begin to break off of the capsule when the Sun’s heat returned.

Back on the ground, serious considerations were being made. A flight controller received a warning from a sensor on Friendship, indicating a loose heat shield. If the sensor was correct in its reading, the only thing holding the heat shield in place was the straps from the retrorocket package. After debate, a decision was made; Glenn was instructed to refrain from jettisoning the retropack — a normal procedure for re-entry — in hopes that it would hold the heat shield in place during re-entry; the alternative was the craft and Glenn disintegrating in the Earth’s atmosphere. Control offered no explanation for the procedure until after successful re-entry. Glenn suspected a problem with the heat shield, but remained focused on the parts of the craft he could control.

CAPCOM: This is Texas Cap Com, Friendship Seven. We are recommending that you leave the retropackage on through the entire reentry.

John Glenn: This is Friendship Seven. What is the reason for this? Do you have any reason? Over.

CAPCOM: Not at this time; this is the judgment of Cape Flight.

The sensor ultimately proved to be faulty and the heat shield remained securely attached to Friendship.

Aside from using more fuel than expected for attitude corrections, a hot spacesuit that had to be regularly adjusted for cooling, and excess cabin humidity, the rest of the flight was essentially flawless.

Glenn fired his retrorockets and descended back to Earth. He splashed down in the Atlantic, 40 miles downrange from the expected landing site. The USS Noa reached Friendship seventeen minutes later and hoisted it onto the ship. Glenn was supposed to exit the capsule from the top hatch, but instead decided to blow the side hatch instead. With a loud bang, the hatch blew open and Glenn emerged and jumped to the deck of the Noa. With a smile, his first words were: “It was hot in there.”

Glenn returned to a hero’s welcome and a ecstatic ticker-tape parade in New York City. Americans were energized with the progress in the race with the Soviets. And with John Glenn’s help, America — and mankind itself — took another step forward into the uncharted heavens above.

*This post was originally published February 20, 2011. Small updates have been made since then.

Ever wondered about the track’s humanity has left on other worlds? If so, you’ll probably appreciate this infographic from Karl Tate and Space.com.

Source Space.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

It’s a fairly intuitive image, so there’s not a lot I need to say. I’m jealous of the miles of tracks that were laid down by the Apollo astronauts in their moon buggies. Could you imagine?

I hope to live long enough to see just as many human-driven miles on Mars.

27 years ago today, seven explorers gave their lives in the pursuit of scientific understanding. 73 seconds after lift-off, Challenger broke apart and disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean.

We remember Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair; (back row) Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik.

We thank them for assisting in this planet’s quest to reach for the stars.

*This post originally published on January 28, 2011.

I still cannot get over the fact that I live in a time in which I can post a video about an asteroid mining company. Enjoy:

For more about Planetary Resources, read this post.

What do professional (American) football players and astronauts have in common? Their “office” is about the same size:

(Image credit: NASA / Click for larger version)

They both require intensive training and the use of helmets too.

If video doesn’t load, please refresh this page.

The latest Curiosity status report indicates that the mysterious shiny object next to the rover “appears to be a shred of plastic material, likely benign, but it has not been definitively identified.”

To proceed cautiously, the team is continuing the investigation for another day before deciding whether to resume processing of the sample in the scoop. Plans include imaging of surroundings with the Mastcam.

A sample of sand and dust scooped up on Sol 61 remains in the scoop. Plans to transfer it from the scoop into other chambers of the sample-processing device were postponed as a precaution during planning for Sol 62 after the small, bright object was detected in an image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam).

I still attest that Curiosity should zap the thing with ChemCam.

(This might explain why I’m a blogger and not a NASA engineer.)

The Mars Curiosity rover tweeted (of course it tweets!) the following earlier this afternoon:

Team spotted bright object on ground near me—possibly a piece of rover hardware? Gathering more data 1.usa.gov/RrwZHG

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) October 8, 2012

Today, Curiosity’s robotic arm reached down and scooped up its first sample of Martian dirt. Its cameras captured the historic moment, but caught something else too. There, among countless grains of reddish-orange sand, a single shimmering something caught the eyes of the image analysts back home on Earth.

Can you see it?
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

How about now?
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS and 46BLYZ)

Even clicking those images and looking at them full-size still doesn’t offer much more in the way of a better look. It’s definitely different than the soil and appears metallic, but that’s about all we can make out. NASA isn’t sure what it is yet either, which I think makes it more exciting. As a result they’ve temporarily halted anymore scooping:

Curiosity’s first scooping activity appeared to go well on Oct. 7. Subsequently, the rover team decided to refrain from using the rover’s robotic arm on Oct. 8 due to the detection of a bright object on the ground that might be a piece from the rover. Instead of arm activities during the 62nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission, Curiosity is acquiring additional imaging of the object to aid the team in identifying the object and assessing possible impact, if any, to sampling activities.

Curiosity even imaged the object with its ChemCam (Chemistry and Camera), but the raw image doesn’t offer much more than the MastCam images:

(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL)

It looks a bit less metallic in this grayscale image, perhaps more like plastic. To me it looks like a discarded shell from someone’s shrimp cocktail. (But that’s just me!)

Hey, did you know that ChemCam also has a built-in laser? It totally does. The purpose of the instrument is to zap rocks with a laser while the camera images the resulting plasma created from the vaporized rock. It can then use the images to analyze the composition and other information about that rock.

It’s my firm belief that Curiosity should zap whatever this unknown object is.  For science!

As I mentioned yesterday, the private corporation SpaceX successfully launched its Dragon capsule en route to the International Space Station, on the first Commercial Resupply Services contract ever. I watched the video live and didn’t immediately notice any issues but, come to find out, the Falcon launch vehicle lost one of its engines on the way to orbit. Not to worry, however, as the other engines stepped up and compensated for the failure.

Check out this video of the catastrophic engine failure:

SpaceX released a mission update this morning, describing the event:

The Dragon spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station this morning and is performing nominally following the launch of the SpaceX CRS-1 official cargo resupply mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 8:35PM ET Sunday, October 7, 2012.

Approximately one minute and 19 seconds into last night’s launch, the Falcon 9 rocket detected an anomaly on one first stage engine. Initial data suggests that one of the rocket’s nine Merlin engines, Engine 1, lost pressure suddenly and an engine shutdown command was issued. We know the engine did not explode, because we continued to receive data from it. Panels designed to relieve pressure within the engine bay were ejected to protect the stage and other engines. Our review of flight data indicates that neither the rocket stage nor any of the other eight engines were negatively affected by this event.

As designed, the flight computer then recomputed a new ascent profile in real time to ensure Dragon’s entry into orbit for subsequent rendezvous and berthing with the ISS. This was achieved, and there was no effect on Dragon or the cargo resupply mission.

Falcon 9 did exactly what it was designed to do. Like the Saturn V (which experienced engine loss on two flights) and modern airliners, Falcon 9 is designed to handle an engine out situation and still complete its mission. No other rocket currently flying has this ability.

It is worth noting that Falcon 9 shuts down two of its engines to limit acceleration to 5 g’s even on a fully nominal flight. The rocket could therefore have lost another engine and still completed its mission.

Dragon is expected to dock with the ISS on Wednesday.

Or, “This time, for real”.

Back in May, SpaceX launched it’s Dragon capsule on top of their Falcon 9 rocket, on an intercept course with the International Space Station. This was a test to prove that SpaceX could take over the resupply of the ISS, as space becomes a commercial frontier. The test went perfectly and SpaceX was green-lighted as a contractor to deliver cargo to the ISS.

Tonight, the Dragon capsule screamed into the sky as part of the first of these Commercial Resupply Contract deliveries. Launch occurred right on schedule, and from the best I could tell watching the live webstream everything went flawlessly. A few minutes after launch, the Dragon capsule separated and reached orbit. Shortly after that, it deployed its solar arrays and will now cruise its way to the ISS.

This mission carries a full load of supplies for the station, but won’t be leaving empty; Dragon will be returning nearly 2,000 pounds (approximately twice the payload going up!) of equipment, astronaut blood and urine samples, and other items.

Dragon is set to dock with the ISS on Wednesday, again through the use of the station’s massive robotic arm as it was during the May trip.