Weekly Reading List - Week of Mar 20

Week of March 20, 2016

This section is a curated list of articles, white papers, concepts, events, videos, and data releases. Some listed items may not be current but are nonetheless quite interesting.

Articles & Sites of Interest

• ESA: ExoMars Operations timeline
• DoE: How SuperTruck is Making Heavy Duty Vehicles More Efficient
• Planetary Society: Continuing the Hunt for Exoplanets
• Universal Science: Hubble breaks cosmic distance record
• Centauri Dreams: A Transiting Jupiter Analog
• Scientific American: No Man's Land - Where on Mars Should Astronauts Go?
• BBC: The Cold War space missions that never 
• spaceREF: LISA Pathfinder Begins Its Science Mission 
• Planetary Society: "Planet Nine" update - Possible resonances beyond the Kuiper belt?
• spaceREF: OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in thermal vacuum testing
• JPL: NASA Targets May 2018 Launch of Mars InSight Mission
• NASA: NASA Prepares to Fly – First RS-25 Flight Engine Test Set for March
• spaceREF: Sharpest View Ever of Dusty Disc Around Aging Star
• PSI: Planetary Science Institute Funded for Expanded Education Public Outreach Effort
• Centauri Dreams: Into the ‘Transit Zone’
• NASA: NASA's K2 mission - The Kepler Space Telescope's Second Chance to Shine
• gbtimes: China's space station - 2 arms, 'wings', and a 'Chinese Hubble'
• spaceREF: Mysterious infrared light from space resolved perfectly   
• Pale Red Dot: Directly Imaging Exoplanets
• NASA: What’s Eating at Pluto? 
• NASA: Pluto’s ‘Snakeskin’ Terrain - Cradle of the Solar System? 
• NASA: NASA Selects Proposals to Build Better Solar Technologies for Deep Space Missions 
• spaceREF: SDU researchers present a new model for what dark matter might be  
• ScienceNews: Support grows for a return to ice giants Uranus and Neptune 
• Planetary Society: ExoMars launch successful! What to expect for the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli missions 
• CICLOPS: Rev234: Mar 21 - Apr 18 '16 
• Planetary Society: Looking Forward to the 2016 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 

Concepts & White Papers

• Solar Polar Orbit Telescope (SPORT)
• OSA: Designs for a large-aperture telescope to map the CMB 10× faster
• arxiv: Quantum Telescopes: feasibility and constrains
• NTRS: Forward Skirt Structural Testing on the Space Launch System (SLS) Program
• NTRS: The Cosmic Microwave Background - Detection and Interpretation of the First Light
• arxiv: Jumping Jupiter can explain Mercury's orbit
• arxiv: Large size and slow rotation of the trans-Neptunian object (225088) 2007 OR10 discovered from Herschel and K2 observations 
• arxiv: Corralling a distant planet with extreme resonant Kuiper belt objects 
• arxiv: The Frequency of Giant impacts on Earth-like Worlds
• arxiv: Telling twins apart: Exo-Earths and Venuses with transit spectroscopy
• NTRS: Potential for Additive Manufacture in Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP)
• NTRS: Friction Stir Welding and NASA
• arxiv: Mineralogy and Geology of asteroid (4) Vesta from Dawn Framing Camera
• arxiv: The mineral clouds on HD 209458b and HD189733b
• Science: The small satellites of Pluto as observed by New Horizons
• Science: The atmosphere of Pluto as observed by New Horizons
• Science: Surface compositions across Pluto and Charon
• Science: The geology of Pluto and Charon through the eyes of New Horizons
• Science: Pluto’s interaction with its space environment: Solar wind, energetic particles, and dust
• RAS: Daily variability of Ceres’ albedo detected by means of radial velocities changes of the reflected sunlight - (Sci-Hub)
• arxiv: Possible ground fog detection from SLI imagery of Titan

Events & Involvement

• Mar 14: ESA / ExoMars 2016 launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Proton rocket @ 04:30 EDT
• Mar 15: House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee on NASA FY2017 budget @ 10:30 EDT
• Mar 15: NASA Advisory Council Astrophysics Subcommittee @ 08:00 EDT
• Mar 16: NASA Advisory Council Astrophysics Subcommittee @ 08:00 EDT
• Mar 17: House Science, Space Design & Technology, Space Subcommittee hearing on NASA FY2017 budget @ 10:00 EDT
• Mar 21: LPSC - News Horizons - Peering into Pluto @ 01:00 PM EDT
• Mar 21: LPSC - New Horizons - The Exploration of the Pluto System and the Kuiper Belt Beyond @ 2:30 PM EDT
• Mar 21: LPSC - NASA Headquarter Briefing on Planetary Sciences @ 6:30 PM EDT

Videos

• Griffith Observatory: Sky Report - March 2016
• Ian Regan: Neptune — Voyager 2 Approaches (ROUGH DRAFT)
• Planetary Radio Live: All these worlds… Planet 9 and our expanding solar system  
• NEAF: New Horizons - Mission to Pluto and What Planethood Really Means
• JHU-APL: The "Hopkins Beast" Mobile Automaton
• JHU-APL: "Ferdinand" the Mobile Automaton
• JHU-APL: Transit - The World's First Satellite Navigation System
• TMT Overview  
• NASA-Stenis: First SLS Flight Engine Test 
• Concorde Chases An Eclipse - 1973 
• DELIVERY FROM EARTH  
• Approaching Neptune

Data

• Cassini: 2016/03/06 - 2016/03/19

Spacecraft Updates

• Mar 8: LISA Pathfinder begins science operations phase
• Mar 8: OSIRIS-REx enters thermal vacuum testing phase
• Mar 9: InSight being repaired by JPL for launch in 2018
• Mar 20: Juno - 803,398,000 km from Sol, 59,635,000 km from Jupiter @ 25,501-km/h - 106 days until JOI
• Mar 20: New Horizons - 5,232,284,000 km from Sol, 312,928,000 km from Pluto, 1,266,620,000 km to KBO-JimGreene @ 51,966-km/h - 1016 days until flyby
• Mar 20: Voyager 1 - 20,101,040,000 km from Sol @ 61,230-km/h
• Mar 20: Voyager 2 - 16,557,785,000 km from Sol @ 55,416-km/h
• Mar 21: Cassini start of Revolution 234
• Mar 22: Cassini Rev234 - ISS / UVIS observation of Saturn's atmosphere
• Mar 23: Cassini Rev234 - ISS observation of Titan in half phase, in search of cloud and haze layer changes from approximately 1.99 million kilometers
• Mar 23: Cassini Rev234 - CIRS observation of Saturn's atmosphere 
• Mar 24: Cassini Rev234 - ISS observation tracking clouds on Saturn 
• Mar 25: Cassini Rev234 - ISS / UVIS observation of Saturn's atmosphere
• Mar 26: Cassini Rev234 - ISS observation tracking clouds on Saturn 

 

Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Mar 6

Week of March 5, 2016

This feature is a curated list of articles, white papers, concepts, events, videos, and data releases. Some listed items may not be current but are nonetheless quite interesting.

Articles & Sites of Interest

• Space.com: Bigelow Aerospace - Inflatable Modules for ISS
• DSFP: The Last Days of the Nuclear Shuttle (1971)
• Spaceflight Insider: Solar Electric Propulsion - NASA’s engine to Mars and Beyond
• International Association of Astronomical Artists 
• Ames Laboratory will lead new consortium to research caloric materials, advance refrigeration technology
• European conductor for ITER Toroidal Field coils ready
• Big milestone at ORNL reactor - 1 Million Megawatts Days
• AstroBio: Searching for Extraterrestrials Who Might Have Found Us First
• AstroBio: Avoiding False Positives in the Search for Living Worlds
• AstroBio: Telling Twins Apart: Exo-Earths and Venuses With Transit Spectroscopy
• OSA: OSA Century of Optics
• How ExoMars-2016 will be launched
• The High Frontier: Once around the Moon - The Soviet circumlunar race
• CNRS: Great tilt gave Mars a new face
• ORNL: ORNL researchers stack the odds for novel optoelectronic 2D materials

Concepts & White Papers

• arxiv: Radar scattering of linear dunes and mega-yardangs: Application to Titan
• arxiv: The Age Distribution of Potential Intelligent Life in the Milky Way 
• arxiv: Could Jupiter or Saturn Have Ejected a Fifth Giant Planet?
• arxiv: Next Generation Very Large Array Memo No. 6, Science Working Group 1: The Cradle of Life
• arxiv: Probing exoplanet clouds with optical phase curves
• NTRS: Development and Utilization of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
• NTRS: Mars Surface Tunnel Element Concept 
• arxiv: Transiting Exoplanet Studies and Community Targets for JWST's Early Release Science Program
• arxiv: Demonstrating High-precision, Multiband Transit Photometry with MuSCAT - A Case for HAT-P-14b 
• ESA / JUICE: Mission Scenario and Operations
• ESA / JUICE: Science Payload
• arxiv: Interaction Cross Sections and Survival Rates for Proposed Solar System Member Planet Nine 
• JGR: Sequence and relative timing of large lakes in Gale crater (Mars) after the formation of Mt. Sharp (Sci-Hub)
• arxiv: Identifying Planetary Biosignature Impostors - Spectral Features of CO and O4 Resulting from Abiotic O2/O3 Production 
• arxiv:  Telling twins apart: Exo-Earths and Venuses with transit spectroscopy
• arxiv: A Transiting Jupiter Analog  
• Nature: Late Tharsis formation and implications for early Mars (Sci-Hub)
• arxiv: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Earth's Solar Transit Zone 
• NTRS: Launch and Commissioning of the Deep Space Climate Observatory 

Events & Involvement

• Mar 8: Exploring the Outer Solar System - Now in Vivid Colour

Videos

• Eternal 5D optical data storage: high density data storage for all-time
• ESO: Hubblecast 90 - The final frontier
• NASA Goddard: (AUDIO ONLY) Affording and Sustaining Human Mars Exploration - Recommendations from the Third Community Workshop
• LASP: Pluto - The pugnacious planet!
• US-Gov Hearing: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Ocean Worlds Budget
• NASA Johnson: A One-Year Mission Retrospective
• NASA Johnson: The Science of the One-Year Mission
• NASA SSERVI / ESA: ESA Looks to Build Permanent Moon Base
• FORMS IN NATURE - Understanding Our Universe
• ESA: ExoMars prepares for launch
• ColumbiaU: Discovery of Kepler-167e - A Jupiter Twin
• Mar 6, 1869: Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society
  
• Mar 6, 1981: Walter Cronkite's final presentation as hosting journalist to CBS Evening News
• Mar 6-19, 1986: Four spacecraft (Vega 1, Suisei, Vega 2, Sakigake) perform flybys of Halley's Comet in the Halley Armada
• Mar 6, 1992: The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers
• Mar 7, 2009: Launch of Kepler space observatory, to search for transiting exoplanets
• Mar 8, 1618: Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion
• Mar 8, 2001: Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-102 - Post-flight Presentation
• Mar 12, 1894: Coca-Cola is bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator Joseph Biedenharn
• Mar 12, 1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers the first of his series of 'Fireside Chats'.
• Mar 12, 1993: The 'Storm of the Century' begins, dropping large amounts of snow across the eastern portion of the US with tornadoes, thunder snow storms, high winds and record low temperatures - the storm would go on to last 30 hours

Spacecraft Updates

• Feb 29: JAXA / Hitomi (ASTRO-H) - completion of critical operations phase, instrument tests to follow
• Mar 5: Juno - 801,082,000 km from Sol, 66,662,000 km from Jupiter @ 25,872-km/h - 120 days until JOI
• Mar 5: New Horizons - 5,214,507,000 km from Sol, 294,987,000 km from Pluto, 1,272,700,000 km to KBO-JimGreene @ 51,990-km/h - 1030 days until flyby
• Mar 5: Voyager 1 - 20,079,965,000 km from Sol @ 61,233-km/h
• Mar 5: Voyager 2 - 16,539,098,000 km from Sol @ 55,418-km/h
• Mar 6: Cassini - ISS movie sequence of the narrow F ring
• Mar 8: Cassini - ISS observation during distant flyby of Titan at 425,863-kilometers
• Mar 8-10: Cassini - ISS movie sequence of the A ring Encke Gap
• Mar 9: Cassini - ISS / CIRS observation of Mimas at 201,880-kilometers
• Mar 10: Cassini - ISS observation of F ring in high resolution
• Mar 10-11: Cassini - ISS movie sequence of the D ring
• Mar 11: Cassini - UVIS observation of Enceledus and plumes at 979,130-kilometers
• Mar 12-19: ISS / CIRS / UVIS observations of the Saturn atmosphere

Blog Entries

• Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 28 
• Juling and Fluusa craters, an Oblique Mosaic  
• LAMO 36 
• LAMO 37 
• LAMO 38 
• LAMO 39 
• LAMO 40 
• Saturday Morning Films - Mar 5  

Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 28

Week of February 28, 2016

This section is a curated list of articles, white papers, concepts, events, videos, and data releases. Some listed items may not be current but are nonetheless quite interesting.

Articles & Sites of Interest

• NASA: NASA Aeronautics Budget Proposes Return of X-Planes
• ESA: Schiaparelli: the ExoMars Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module
• Centauri Dreams: An Exoplanet Changing Over Time 
• Elsevier: Why Science Needs to Publish Negative Results 
• BBC: What would happen if aliens contacted Earth 
• In a Hubble first, UA astronomers take images of an exoplanet changing over time 
• NASA: Pulsar Web Could Detect Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves
• NASA: Tools and Talent at Michoud to Complete SLS Core Stage Welding in 2016
• SKA: New Fast Radio Burst discovery finds ‘missing matter’ in the Universe
• AstroSociety: Science Fiction Stories with Good Astronomy & Physics - A Topical Index
• ESA: Fuelling the Trace Gas Orbiter
• NASA: Orion Test Hardware in Position for Solar Array Test
• ESO: ATLASGAL Survey of Milky Way Completed
• Discovery: 'Space Men' - Ascending to Earth's Deadliest Frontier
• Slate: Astronomers Find Another Small Icy Body Out Past Pluto
• Space Policy Online: House SS&T Lays Out Work Plan for 2016, Including NASA and NOAA
• PRD: The Hunt for Free Floating Planets in Our Galaxy
• NASA: Where’s My Data? Keeping Track of New Horizons’ Treasure of Information

Concepts & White Papers

• arxiv: Constraints on the location of a possible 9th planet derived from the Cassini data
• arxiv: Cosmologists in Search of Planet Nine: the Case for CMB Experiments 
• arxiv: Discovery of Rotational Modulations in the Planetary-Mass Companion 2M1207b: Intermediate Rotation Period and Heterogeneous Clouds in a Low Gravity Atmosphere 
• NASA: Project Mercury Drawings and Technical Diagrams
• arxiv: Neptune's Orbital Migration Was Grainy, Not Smooth
• NTRS: The Pioneer mission to Jupiter
• NTRS: Objectives and goals in space science and applications 1968
• NTRS: Planetary exploration: Space in the seventies
• JGR: Cryovolcanism on Titan - New results from Cassini RADAR and VIMS (sci-hub)
• arxiv: Evolution and Magnitudes of Candidate Planet Nine
• arxiv: Transiting Planet Candidates Beyond the Snow Line Detected by Visual Inspection of 7557 Kepler Objects of Interest

Events & Involvement

• Mar 1 - PBS: Space Men @ 9PM-EST

Videos

• James Webb Space Telescope Deployment In Detail
• Discovery: Telescope 
• NASA: Preparing America for Deep Space Exploration Episode 12 - Built for Exploration 
• USGov Hearing: Unlocking the Secrets of the Universe - Gravitational Waves
• USGov Hearing: The Space Leadership Preservation Act and the Need for Stability at NASA 
• ESO: ESOcast 81 - Red Sprites
• SETI: Exoplanets spectroscopy with diffraction primary objective telescopes 
• Feb 28, 1885: The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone.
• Feb 28, 1935: Nylon invented by Wallace Carothers of Dupont
• Feb 28, 1953: The chemical structure of DNA is determined in a laboratory by James Watson and Francis Crick
• Feb 28, 1959: Launch of Discoverer 1, a Corona Key Hole class spy satellite prototype, failing to enter the intended polar orbit, crashing near the south pole
• Mar 1, 1872: Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park by President Ulysses S. Grant and the sitting U.S. congress 
• Mar 1, 1936: Hoover Dam is completed 
• Mar 1, 1954: Detonation of Castle Bravo dry hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination zone caused by the U.S.
• Mar 1, 1961: President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps
• Mar 3, 1915: NACA, predecessor to NASA, established after William Howard Taft and the sitting U.S. congress passed the act
• Mar 3, 1938: LNER A4 locomotive, 'The Mallard', becomes fastest steam locomotive in production, capable of speeds greater than 120mph
• Mar 3, 1969: Launch of Apollo CSM-104 & Apollo LM-3 aboard a Saturn V on mission Apollo 9 to perform an inflight test in docking the CSM with the LM
• Mar 4, 1890: The Forth Bridge in Scotland becomes the longest in Great Britain, measuring 520-meters long
• Mar 4, 1913: The U.S. Department of Labor is established by President William Howard Taft and the sitting U.S. congress
• Mar 4, 1986: USSR Vega 1 begins returning image from Halley's Comet
• Mar 5, 1943: UK jet fighter, Gloster Meteor, takes first flight
• Mar 5, 1979: Voyager 1 encounters Jupiter at nearest distance of 276,800-kilometers
• Mar 5, 1981: Sinclair Research launches ZX81, later selling 1.5 million units

Data

• Mar 1: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Release #36

Activities

• OSIRIS-REx paper model

Spacecraft Updates

• Feb 28: Juno - 799,917,000 km from Sol, 69,939,000 km to Jupiter @ 26,044-km/h
• Feb 28: New Horizons - 5,206,153,000 km from Sol, 286,555,000 km from Pluto, 1,281,132,000 km to KBO-JimGreene @ 51,998-km/h
  
• Feb 28: Voyager 1 - 20,070,061,000 km from Sol @ 61,233-km/h
  
• Feb 28: Voyager 2 - 16,530,316,000 km from Sol @ 55,419-km/h

Blog Entries

• Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 21  
• LAMO 31
• LAMO 32 
• LAMO 32 - Reoriented 
• Juling Crater - H39-L32 
• LAMO 33 
• LAMO 33 - Reoriented
• LAMO 34 
• LAMO 35 
• Saturday Morning Films - Feb 27  

Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 21

Week of February 21 , 2016

This section is a curated list of articles, white papers, concepts, events, videos, and data releases. Some listed items may not be current but are nonetheless quite interesting.

Articles & Sites of Interest

• Thirty-Meter Telescope officials reviewing sites outside of Hawaii
• Universal Science: Novel Calibration Tool Will Help Astronomers Look for Habitable Exoplanets
• DSFP: What If Galileo Had Fallen to Earth?
• Webb Update: Winter 2016
• SLS Highlights: January 2016
• NASA: The Many Faces of Pluto and Charon
• Archive.org: Usborne Book of the Future
• Universal Science: Rarity of Jupiter-like planets means planetary systems exactly like ours may be scarce
• Accessing the Kepler Mission data
• AstroBio: Volcanoes Light Up Atmospheres of Small Exoplanets
• BBC: What if cosmonauts were the first to walk on the Moon? 
• Planetary Society: A new hope for a microphone on Mars - Enhancing Mars 2020 science with sound
• NASA Spaceflight: NASA moves to enforce early switch to EUS for SLS
• Hubble Space Telescope: First Detection of Super-Earth Atmosphere
• NASA / JAXA: New X-ray Space Observatory to Study Black Holes and History of Galaxy Clusters
• inverse: NASA Watch's Keith Cowing Is the Agency's Biggest Critic and Most Obsessive Fan
• ScienceNews: Support grows for a return to ice giants Uranus and Neptune
• NASA: Welding Wonder Delivers Confidence for SLS Core Stage
• Galaxy Monitor: China To Relocate Thousands For World’s Largest Telescope
• NASA: NASA Introduces New, Wider Set of Eyes on the Universe
• NASA: WFIRST Mission
• Centauri Dreams: WFIRST - Moving Closer to a Mission 
• CosmosUp: Why Is It So Hard To Go To Europa?
• spaceREF: Measuring The Rotation of an Extrasolar Planet
• Nature: The truth about exoplanets
• NASA: NASA Engineer Awaits Launch of CubeSat Mission Demonstrating Virtual-Telescope Tech
• PopSci: Jack Northrop and the UFO-Lookin' Flying Wings
• Chandra: ew X-ray Observatory Comes Online
• How does misinformation spread online?
• Bob Gilruth, the Quiet Force Behind Apollo
• Popular Mechanics: How Mir Became Humanity's Foothold in Space
• Orbital ATK: Space Launch System Solid Rocket Booster QM-2 Test Update
• Library of Congress Magazine Vol. 5 No. 1: Jan.-Feb. 2016 

Concepts & White Papers

• NTRS: OSIRIS-REx Orbit Determination Covariance Studies at Bennu 
• NTRS: JWST Pathfinder Telescope Risk Reduction Cryo Test Program 
• arxiv: Detection of an atmosphere around the super-Earth 55 Cancri e 
• arxiv: The inner edge of the habitable zone for synchronously rotating planets around low-mass stars using general circulation models 
• NTRS: Overview and Status of the Laser Communication Relay Demonstration 
• NTRS: Apollo A-7L Spacesuit Development for Apollo 7 Through 14 Missions 
• NTRS: Apollo Spacesuit Modifications for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) Spacesuit 

Events & Involvement

• Dec 8-13 2015: Division of Planetary Sciences meeting 2015
  
• Jan 4-8: AAS 227 Press Conference Webcasts
• Feb 9: Geology After Pluto
• Feb 11-15: AAAS 2016 Annual Meeting - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5
• Feb 21-26: 2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting
• Feb 23: The Breakthrough Initiative - Listen and Megastructures at KIC 8463
  
• Feb 24: Webinar - Explore, Discover, and Use Field Campaign and Related Data @ 2:00PM-EST
• Feb 26-27: Review of Progress Toward the Decadal Survey Vision in New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics - Meeting 4 - videos from previous meetings

Videos

• Planetary Society: S.O.F.I.A. 
• Space Exploration | Our Universe
• ESA: ExoMars 2016 - launch to Mars
• ESA: How ESA is Preparing Astronauts for Missions to the Moon
• ESA: Uniting the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli
• Oribtal ATK: QM-1 Static Test Fire
• Tokamak VS Stellarator
• NASA Goddard: WFIRST - The Best of Both Worlds
• NASA: Listening to the Stars
• SpaceRip: Giants on the Cosmic Frontier
• Equipment for an amateur [chemistry] lab - Part 1 - Part 2
• Feb 21, 1803: Pen-y-Darren Ironworks debuts the first self-propelling steam locomotive in Wales
• Feb 21, 1842: John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine
• Feb 22, 1996: Launch of Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-75  - Post flight press conference
• Feb 22, 1995: The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, active from 1959 to 1972, is declassified to the public - Corona program overview
• Feb 23, 1941: Element 94, Plutonium, is first isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg
• Feb 23, 1896: Invention of the Tootsie Roll
• Feb 23, 1987: Supernova 1987a is captured in the Large Megallanic Cloud
• Feb 23, 2011: Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-133 - Post launch press conference
• Feb 26, 1896: Discovery of the physical property, radioactivity
• Feb 26, 1966: Launch of unmanned Apollo CSM-009 on mission AS-201
• Feb 27, 1919: The Grand Canyon is declared a national park by President Woodrow Wilson and the sitting U.S. congress
• Feb 27, 1929: The Grand Teton range is declared a national park by President Calvin Coolidge and the sitting U.S. congress (partial video) 

 

Data

• Feb19: New Horizons LORRI release (non-raw)

Activities

• NASA Invites Public to Send Artwork to an Asteroid - Deadline: March 20, 2016

Spacecraft Updates

• Feb 17: WFIRST entered phase A for design
• Feb 21: Juno - 798,714,000 km from Sol, 73,173,000 km to Jupiter
• Feb 21: New Horizons - 5,197,875,000 km from Sol, 278,199,000 km from Pluto, 1,289,488,000 km to KBO-JimGreene
• Feb 21: Voyager 1 - 20,060,250,000 km from Sol
• Feb 21: Voyager 2 - 16,521,621,000 km from Sol

Blog Entries

• Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 14, 2016
• New Horizons 2015-02-12 release
• LAMO 27
• SDO - 2016-02-16 
• LAMO 28 
• LAMO 29 
• LAMO 30 
• New Horizons 2015-02-19 release 
• Saturday Morning Films - Feb 20