Space

In a brute-force search for ice on the moon, an empty 5,000-pound rocket stage traveling twice as fast as a rifle bullet crashed into a permanently shadowed crater near the moon's south pole Friday, presumably blasting out tons of debris for examination by an instrumented probe that carried out its own kamikaze plunge four minutes later.

While the initial impact at 4:31 a.m. PDT did not prove especially dramatic--it was not even visible in real-time video from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)--scientists said a camera sensitive to temperature variations clearly recorded the … Read more

Popular Mechanics magazine on Thursday will unveil its fifth-annual Breakthrough Award winners, an august collection of designers and products that could do much more than their share to change the world for the better.

From famous inventors like Dean Kamen to a flying car for the Third World to bacteria-powered batteries--and much in-between--the awards are meant to highlight technologies that will shape the way people around the world live and how they interact with everyday products.

Each year, the magazine's editors scour the country for a worthy group of winners, and this year, in the end, Popular Mechanics settled on one leadership award winner, one next-generation honoree, eight Breakthrough innovators and 10 Breakthrough products.

"In all cases, there's a really practical application that we see coming about," said Jerry Beilinson, the magazine's deputy editor, "so these aren't theoretical scientific applications. (They're going to) change the world and have a really positive aspect on people's lives."

Beilinson said that after five years of identifying technological breakthrough products and innovators, certain themes have emerged in the editors' preferences. Among the most important, he said, is alternative energy and products and designers that push that category forward.

"If I look back (at the last few years of doing the awards), we looked at aviation and we looked at medicine," he said. "But over the last few years, I think the things that have been clear themes that we've been looking at that have emerged (are) alternative energy and appropriate technologies for the developing world."

And while the themes can be forward-looking, the individual awards celebrate a "moment in time," he said.

"We're sort of picking the moment at which it's become real, and passed the threshold and seems like its worthy of an award," Beilinson said. "But most of these kinds of things do take some time to develop."

For this year's Breakthrough Leadership award, Popular Mechanics honored Dean Kamen, an inventor with more than 440 patents who may be best known for creating the incredible but commercially disappointing Segway personal transporter. … Read more

The Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft carrying cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, NASA flight engineer Jeffrey Williams, and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté maneuvered to a smooth docking with the International Space Station early Friday to close out a two-day orbital chase.

With Suraev and Williams closely monitoring the final stages of the automated rendezvous, the small capsule's docking mechanism engaged its counterpart at the aft port of the Zvezda command module at 4:35 a.m. EDT as the two spacecraft sailed high above northeast Kazakhstan. Hooks and latches then engaged to pull the Soyuz firmly into place.

After leak … Read more

A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from Yuri Gagarin's launch pad in Kazakhstan Wednesday, carrying two fresh crew members and the founder of Cirque du Soleil on a voyage to the International Space Station.

Under a cloudless blue sky, the Soyuz TMA-16 rumbled to life and soared away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:14:42 a.m. EDT, roughly the moment Earth's rotation carried the launch pad into the plane of the station's orbit.

Soyuz commander Maxim Suraev, making his first flight, monitored the ascent from the cramped capsule's center seat, assisted by … Read more

A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket roared to life and thundered away from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Friday, successfully boosting a pair of experimental missile-tracking satellites into orbit for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

With its roots in the old "Star Wars" program, the goal of the $1.5 billion Space Tracking and Surveillance System mission is to demonstrate the ability to detect and track enemy missiles from launch, through the so-called mid-course phase of flight to atmospheric entry, providing more accurate targeting data for interceptors.

"The purpose of these satellites is to … Read more

Data from a comet-bound NASA probe, a robotic mission to Saturn, and a U.S. instrument aboard an Indian spacecraft have provided clear evidence that at least trace amounts of water exist on the moon's surface, researchers said Thursday.

While scientists have long suspected that water ice from comet impacts is trapped in cold, permanently shadowed craters near the moon's poles, the new data indicates that water molecules form and dissipate across broader areas, even in lunar daylight.

While the data represent a major surprise and a "really profound discovery," one scientist said, researchers cautioned that … Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--Chief astronaut Steven Lindsey, a veteran of four shuttle missions, will command an all-veteran six-member crew for the final planned space shuttle flight next year, NASA announced Friday. Peggy Whitson, an experienced space station commander, will take over as chief astronaut as the shuttle program winds down.

Lindsey will be joined by pilot Eric Boe and mission specialists Benjamin "Al" Drew, Michael Barratt, Nicole Stott, and Timothy Kopra, all space veterans. Barratt and Stott are currently in orbit aboard the International Space Station while Kopra just returned from a long-duration stay.

Launch aboard the … Read more

After two months of checkout and calibration, NASA's $504 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was maneuvered into a circular 31-mile-high mapping orbit Tuesday, and scientists said Thursday the spacecraft's instruments are delivering intriguing clues about the possible presence of water ice.

"The moon is starting to reveal her secrets, but some of those secrets are tantalizingly complex," said Michael Wargo, NASA's chief lunar scientist.

Scientists expected the spacecraft to find signs of hydrogen--an indicator of possible water ice deposits--in permanently shadowed craters near the moon's south pole. Ice could be expected from cometary impacts over … Read more

Japan's new HTV cargo ship, carrying more than 7,000 pounds of supplies and equipment, was plucked out of open space by the International Space Station's robot arm Thursday to complete a near-flawless automated rendezvous marking a major milestone for the station program.

Arm operator Nicole Stott, working inside the Destiny laboratory module, locked the station's space crane onto the HTV cargo ship at 3:47 p.m. EDT as the two spacecraft moved into orbital darkness 220 miles above Eastern Europe.

"It's a real example of international cooperation with a Japanese vehicle captured by … Read more