This weekend the space shuttle Endeavour is on its way to the California Science Center, getting driven via Overland Transporter along 12 miles of Los Angeles roads at a more-or-less steady 2 mph. Hundreds of onlookers have gathered along the route to catch a glimpse of a real-life spaceship passing by just outside their front…
Tag: Endeavour
Farewell, Endeavour: The Last Shuttle’s Final Flight from Florida’s Space Coast
The space shuttle Endeavour, mounted atop NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), is seen shortly after takeoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012 in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The SCA, a modified 747 jetliner, is flying Endeavour to Los Angeles where it will be placed on public display at the California Science Center….
On The Rim Of Endeavour!
After almost three years of travel across the cold, rusty plains of Mars the last remaining functioning rover on Mars has finally reached her goal: the rim of the giant Endeavour Crater! Congratulations Opportunity and the MER team! “Our arrival at this destination is a reminder that these rovers have continued far beyond the original…
Up, Up and Away!
The space shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Cape Canaveral for the final time on the morning of Monday, May 16 2011, and quickly pierced through the low cloud cover, disappearing from view for many observers on the ground but not for those high above in a NASA weather reconnaissance aircraft! They had quite the view…
30 Years, 133 Launches, 133 Seconds
In honor of the end of NASA’s shuttle program (with only two flights remaining) CNN videographers have assembled a wonderful montage of the 133 launches over the past 30 years and put them together in the video below. Check it out! (There may be a brief advertisement at the beginning…that’s embedded in the CNN video.)…
Mars à la Ansel Adams
Opportunity panorama of Santa Maria Crater rim. © Stuart Atkinson. As Opportunity wraps up her stay at Santa Maria crater, Stuart Atkinson leaves us with this wonderful “Ansel Adams style” panorama of the crater’s rim and dune-carpeted interior. “I’m very, very jealous of the people who will one day make a pilgrimage to this…
On the Edge of Santa Maria
Opportunity has finally made it to the edge of her latest observation target: the crater named “Santa Maria”!
Meanwhile, back on Mars…
Opportunity has recently moved away from its latest distraction: a pair of ancient craters in the dust dunes of the Meridiani Plains dubbed “San Antonio”. The rover didn’t stay long though…a couple of days, just enough to take a few photos of the soft-edged, sandy craters. It has since struck out south again over the…
Groovy Rock
Another image from Opportunity showing some of the heavily-textured rocks ringing Concepción crater in fascinating detail, color-calibrated by Stuart Atkinson for an approximation of Martian natural lighting. You can clearly see here the layered structure of the rocks, their angular shapes, the interesting “crust” that coats their sides as well as the small stone “berries”…
Head for the Hills!
…or, in Opportunity’s case, away from the Hills. The “Chocolate Hills“, that is…a pair of rocks on the rim of the rover’s latest exploration target, Concepción crater. Opportunity has spent a couple of weeks investigating them and other rocks in another fascinating side trip on its journey across the Meridian Plains. It is now moving…
Destination: Endeavour
The Exploration Rover Opportunity, moving steadily across the low dunes of the Meridiani Plains while its sister Spirit is mired in soft sands half a planet away (temporarily we hope!), takes a photo of its eventual destination: the 14-mile-wide crater Endeavour, still several miles away. The mountainous northern rim of the crater is visible…
Lights in the Dark 