Become an Exoplanet Hunter With Newest Zooniverse Citizen Science Project – Planet Hunters is the latest in the Zooniverse project, and users will help scientists analyze data taken by NASA’s Kepler mission, the biggest, badest exoplanet hunting telescope in space. The project goes live on December 16 at http://www.planethunters.org. -Nancy Atkinson / Universe Today

Could This be the Start of a New Space Shuttle? – All is not lost for the space shuttle idea. Richard Branson is thinking big again and along with orbital sciences Corp, Sierra Nevada Corp and some others they may build a reusable taxi to space just like the space shuttle. NASA will find $200 million to help with the development. -Weirdwrap

A delicately violent celestial shell game – One of my favorite types of objects in space are the thin, ethereal shells of gas stars create when they die. So I was thrilled* to see this new image of one taken in exquisite detail by the Hubble Space Telescope: -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy

X-rays From Lightning – What Superman would See – Using a custom-built camera the size of a refrigerator, Florida researchers have made the world’s first crude pictures of X-rays streaming from a stroke of lightning. -Daily Galaxy

Bright White Storm Raging on Saturn – About a week ago, a bright white storm emerged on Saturn’s northern hemisphere, and amateur astronomer/planet astrophotographer extraordinaire Anthony Wesley from Australia has captured a few images of it. “This is the brightest Saturn storm in decades,” Anthony said on his website, Ice In Space. “If you get a chance to see it visually then take it, as it may be one of the rare “Great White Spot” (GWS) outbreaks on Saturn.” -Nancy Atkinson / Universe Today

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Photos

Discovery on the pad

ISS through clouds

Erupting Volcano

Geminid in Death Valley

Gallery Pick of the Day

Soyuz lift-off with ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli together with Dmitri Kondratyev and Catherine Coleman for a challenging 6-month mission on the International Space Station (ISS) as members of Expeditions 26/27. They were launched in the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 15 December at 19:09 GMT. Paolo’s MagISStra mission will be Europe’s third long-duration mission on the ISS. Between December 2010 and June 2011 he will be part of the ISS crew as a flight engineer. - Credit: ESA - S. Corvaja, 2010

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.

Nov 5, 2010 – The launch of Space Shuttle Discovery has been officially scrubbed at 12:11 UTC due to a leak of Liquid Hydrogen at the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate (GUCP) detected during the tanking process. Leaks at the GUCP delayed launches for STS-119 and STS-127.

The Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate where a leak of liquid hydrogen has been detected during tanking - Credit: NASA TV

The teams are working a 48 hours turnaround 72 hours turnaround with launch targeted at 18:15:46 UTC on Sunday, as 24 hours is not enough to drain the External Tank (ET) to examine and resolved the issue. The current launch window closes on Sunday, November 7, 2010. The shuttle cannot launch between Nov. 8 and Nov. 23 because of a so-called beta angle cutout. Such cutouts are defined by the angle between the sun and the plane of the space station’s orbit. When it the beta angle is too high or too low, temperature constraints for the docked shuttle-station stack can exceed safety guidelines. Nevertheless, the Mission Management Team (MMT) is also looking into the possibility to launch on Monday, Nov 8 with a reworked flight plan.

Official STS-133 Countdown Underway – The official countdown clock began ticking backward at 18:00 UTC Sunday. Launch is targeted for Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 20:52 UTC. NASA Test Director Steve Payne said this morning that the work to repair the leaks is complete, the system is repressurized and work is on schedule for Discovery’s launch. -NASA

A detailed look at the latest STS133 Launch Weather Forecast (PDF)

Mitigating Asteroid Threats Will Take Global Action – During the past 24 hours, the Earth has been hit by about a million small meteoroids – most of which burned up in the atmosphere as shooting stars. This happens every day. And occasionally – once every 10,000 years or so — a really big asteroid (1 km in diameter or larger) comes along and smacks Earth with an extinction-level impact. That idea might cause some of us to lose some sleep. But in between are other asteroid hits that occur every 200-300 years where a medium-sized chunk of space rock intersects with Earth’s orbit, producing a Tunguska-like event, or worse. -Nancy Atkinson / Universe Today

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Waning Quarter Moon

Africa at night

Europe at night

Discovery on Pad 39a

Gallery Pick of the Day

Astronomers using data from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, have made an impressive composite of the nebula Messier 17, also known as the Omega Nebula or the Swan Nebula. The painting-like image shows vast clouds of gas and dust illuminated by the intense radiation from young stars. - ESO/R. Chini

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.-

NASA’s last flight of Discovery – If you have always wanted to watch a launch of the Shuttle that lofted Hubble into orbit, then you get one final chance: the last scheduled flight of Discovery is now set for November 1. -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy

Pluto and Charon opposition surges, Nix and Hydra masses, Pluto and Eris compositions – An awful lot of the talks in the Pluto session on Tuesday morning, October 5, at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting spent more time focusing on how bad weather conditions were during the astronomers’ attempts to view Pluto as it occulted background stars than they did on any measurements or science that came out from the data. – Emily Lakdawalla / The Planetary Society

Five Things About NASA’s EPOXI Mission – Here are five quick facts about the EPOXI mission, scheduled to fly by comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, 2010. -NASA/JPL

Another X-ray Nova Detected by ISS, Swift – A new X-ray emitting object in the Milky Way has been recently announced by the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) team and the Swift satellite astronomers. MAXI, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency supported instrument, monitors the entire sky in the X-ray portion of the spectrum from its perch on the International Space Station module “Kibo”. On October 12th, MAXI noticed nothing out of the ordinary in a portion of the sky in the constellation Centaurus. -Nicholos Wethington / Universe Today

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The Moon a few nights ago

Sunrise

Sunspot

Richat structure in Mauritania

Gallery Pick of the Day

Milky Way all around the horizon line and Gegenschein from Atacama desert in Chile - Credit: Stéphane Guisard

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery. More information as well as different views are available at Stéphane’s page.

ESO Virtual Tour – Take a peek at the place where ESO astronomers look deep into the sky to make incredible discoveries about our universe – European South Observatory (ESO)

Mars Orbiters Observe New Impact Crater on Mars – The MRO Context camera team noticed a dark spot in an image taken in August 2010 that was not present in a Mars Odyssey THEMIS image taken in December 2007. -HiRISE/NASA/JPL

Did a Comet Make Jupiter’s Rings Wave? – When you’re talking about a gas giant planet with rings, it’s often Saturn in the limelight. After all, you can see that planet’s bright disk of icy particles from Earth with just a modest telescope. But in 1979 the Voyager 1 spacecraft saw that Jupiter has rings too, albeit a much fainter system primarily made up of dust. -National Geographic Blogs

M31′s Odd Rotation Curve – Recent observations of the Andromeda Galaxy‘s (M31) rotation curve has shown that there may yet be more to learn. In the outermost edges of the galaxy, the rotation rate has been shown to increase. -Jon Voisey / Universe Today

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Jupiter

Comet 103P/Hartley

M33 - Triangulum Galaxy

Comet 103P/Hartley

M42 - Orion Nebula

IC 434 - Horsehead Nebula

NGC6888 - Crescent Nebula

NGC6820

Gallery Pick of the Day

Discovery is on the pad 39-A and waiting for it's Nov.1 launch date

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.

Daylight Venus transit of the ISS – Venus is the brightest celestial body in the night sky after the Moon. It could get as bright as an magnitude of -4.6. When Theo Ramakers and Frank Garner photographed its beauty on the afternoon of Sep.25, Venus was right behind the path of ISS. -Xiao Sun / Astronomy Cameras Blog

Birth of the Space Age – History changed on Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite. About the size of a beach ball and weighing about 184 pounds, it took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race. -NASA

STS-133 completes hyper loading – Discovery may star in Transformers movie – With the departmental Flight Readiness Reviews (FRRs) ongoing – leading up to the SSP (Space Shuttle Program) FRR set for next week – Discovery continues to enjoy a smooth pad flow, as the milestone of hyper loading (S0024) was completed on Saturday. The veteran orbiter is also enjoying a weekend at the movies, as filming of Transformers 3 picks up at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). -NASA Spaceflight

ESA and oil industries explore applications from space – Members of the space and oil and gas sectors have come together in the first meeting of its kind to discuss current Earth observation capabilities and the evolving information requirements within the oil and gas industry. -ESA

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Videos

Jupiter's rotation with Great Red Spot and Europa moon - Credit: Emanuele Baldani

Photos

Comet 103P/Hartley

M42 - Orion Nebula

Io in true colors

Daily sunrise

Gallery Pick of the Day

Daylight Venus transit of the ISS - Credit: Theo Ramakers and Frank Garner

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.

The space shuttle Discovery landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida

Space Shuttle Discovery landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a 15-day mission and 238 orbits of Earth. Discovery’s main gear touched down at 13:08:35 GMT, followed by the nose gear at 13:08:47 GMT and wheelstop at 13:09:33 GMT.

The space shuttle Discovery is seen as it lands at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Tuesday, April 20, 2010. Discovery and the STS-131 mission crew, Commander Alan G. Poindexter, Pilot James P. Dutton Jr. and Mission Specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Rick Mastracchio, Stephanie Wilson, Clayton Anderson and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki returned from their mission to the International Space Station. Photo credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

STS-131 was the 131st space shuttle mission, the 38th for Discovery and the 33rd shuttle mission to the International Space Station. It was the second flight of 2010. It is Discovery’s penultimate mission; its last flight is STS-133, targeted for Sept. 16.

Homecoming The space shuttle Discovery is seen as it lands at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Tuesday, April 20, 2010. Discovery and the STS-131 mission crew--Commander Alan G. Poindexter, pilot James P. Dutton Jr. and mission specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Rick Mastracchio, Stephanie Wilson, Clayton Anderson and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki--returned from their mission to the International Space Station - Credit: Naoki KASHIWADANI

STS-128 launch from T-9 minutes to the Main Engine Cut-off (MECO):

Detailed launch time line between T-31s and MECO is available in my launch post.

For Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-128 17A) launch photos visit my twitter feed gallery

Information about out about visible ISS and shuttle passes at your location is available from heavens-above.

The ground track of ISS with its current position - The dashed part of the orbit path shows where the satellite is in the earth's shadow, and the full part is where it is sunlit - Source: Heavens-Above.com

The ground track of Space Shuttle Discovery with its current position - The dashed part of the orbit path shows where the orbiter is in the earth's shadow, and the full part is where it is sunlit - Source: Heavens-Above.com

Update 2

Viewed from the Banana River Viewing Site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Discovery arcs through a cloud-brushed sky, lighted by the trail of fire after launch on the STS-128 mission - Photo Credit: NASA/Ben Cooper

Update 1: NASA Kennedy YouTube channel now has the launch video in SD.

Discovery's External Tank with the Moon in the background - Image Source: NASA TV

03:59:06 UTC @ T-00:31 – Auto-sequence start. Discovery’s on-board computers have primary control of all vehicle’s critical functions.

03:59:22 UTC @ T-00:15 – The Sound Suppression Water System has been activated to protect Discovery and the launch pad from acoustical energy and rocket exhaust reflected from the flame trench and Mobile Launcher Platform during launch.

Sound Suppression Water System has been activated - Source: NASA TV

03:59:28 UTC @ T-00:09 – The hydrogen burn-off system begins to eliminate free hydrogen exhausted into the main engine nozzles during the start sequence to prevent small, but potentially dangerous, explosions when the main engines ignite.

The hydrogen burn-off system activated - Source: NASA TV

03:59:30 UTC @ T-00:06.6 (and 06.48, 06.36) – The three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) start.

Space Shuttle Main Engines start - Source: NASA TV

Solid Rocket Boosters ignition - Source: NASA TV

03:59:37 UTC @ T-00:00 – Lift-off. Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) ignition and lift-off of the Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-128 17A mission to the International Space Station (ISS). This is Discovery’s 37th flight overall and the 30th mission to the ISS. The seven crew members of STS-128, commanded by NASA veteran Frederick W. Sturckow (STS-88, STS-105, STS-117), will stay in space 12 days 18 hours and 9 minutes and are scheduled land at the Kennedy Space Center at 23:09 UTC on September 10. Mission Specialists John “Danny” Olivas, Christer Fuglesang and Nicole Stott will combined for total of 19.5 hours during 3 planned spacewalks (EVA) on flight days 5, 7 and 9.

Space Shuttle Discovery liftoff - Source: NASA TV

~04:00:22 UTC @ ~T+00:45 – The shuttle passed Mach 1 while the engines were throttling down before Max-Q (the point of the greatest dynamic pressure)

04:01:40 UTC @ T+02:03 – Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) separation. Discovery is at the altitude of 45 km, 40 km down range from the KSC, traveling at 5800 km/h (Mach 4).

04:02:07 UTC @ T+02:30 – 2 engine Moron. Discovery can now reach the Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) site in Moron in the case of a single engine failure.

04:03:30 UTC @ T+03:53 – Negative Return – Discovery has used too much fuel and is traveling too fast, too high and is too far to return to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for a potential Return To Launch Site (RTLS) abort.

04:04:32 UTC @ T+04:55 – Press to ATO select Istres – Discovery could now reach a safe 195 by 157 km orbit with two Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) throttled at Typical Mission Power Level (104.5%) in case of a single SSME failure. Should one of the engines fail the crew could execute the Abort To Orbit (ATO) maneuver (in case of TAL abort, the landing facility in Istres, France would be used).

04:05:03 UTC @ T+05:26 – Single Engine OPS-3 – Discovery could now reach the designated TAL site with a single engine at Full Power Level (FPL), i.e 109% throttle, should two of the SSME’s fail.

04:05:48 UTC @ T+06:11 – Press to MECO (Main Engine Cut-off) and Single Engine Istres 104 – Discovery can now reach planned orbit in case of a single SSME failure and the Istres TAL site on a single engine at 104.5% throttle.

~04:06:34 UTC @ T+06:57 – Nominal shut down plan. Go for the plus X, no go for the pitch – The shuttle has reach the planned elliptical orbit (before circularization) and no correction by the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) is necessary (OMS-1 not required). After the External Tank (ET) separation (SEP) the orbiter’s Reaction Control System (RCS) will execute a negative Z (in the direction up through the roof) translation maneuver to move the orbiter away from the ET. The “no go for the pitch” refers to the ET Photo maneuver, which is a pitch around of the orbiter that allows the crew to take pictures of the tank out of the overhead windows. Because of the time of the launch, at ET SEP the orbiter will be in the darkness of the Earth’s shadow so ET photography would not yield useful data.

04:06:46 UTC @ T+07:09 – Single engine press 104 – Discovery can now reach planned orbit on a single engine at 104.5% throttle in case of two main engine failure.

04:08:01 UTC @ T+08:24 -  The Main Engine Cut-off (MECO), zero thrust (at T+08:35). Discovery has reach the planned orbit and is schedule to dock with the International Space Station on Flight Day 4.

04:08:01 UTC @ T+08:35 – External Tank (ET) separation.

External Tank separation - Source: NASA TV

~04:09:22 UTC @ T+09:45 – Nominal MECO, OMS-1 not required.

Seated are NASA astronauts Rick Sturckow (right), commander; and Kevin Ford, pilot. From the left (standing) are astronauts Jose Hernandez, John “Danny” Olivas, Nicole Stott, European Space Agency’s Christer Fuglesang and Patrick Forrester - Photo Source: NASA

STS-128 is the first spaceflight for the shuttle pilot Kevin Ford, the flight engineer for launch and landing Jose Hernandez and the flight engineer for Expedition 20 and 21  Nicole Stott who will take the place of Astronaut Time Kopra aboard the station until her return home in November aboard STS-129.

The STS-128 mission will deliver to the station the Multi-Purpose Experiment Support Structure Carrier and the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (Leonardo), whose main purpose is to assist with establishing a six-man crew capacity by providing extra supplies and equipment to the station, and the Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment Support Structure Carrier (LMC) with Ammonia Tank Assembly (ATA).

The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, so named for comedian Stephen Colbert, will be transferred to the station on flight day 5 and set up after Discovery undocks from the station. Stephen Colbert himself, recorded a message for NASA (watch the video below)…

Every mission carries out Detailed Test Objectives (DTO’s). STS-128 has 5 planned DTO’s. One of them, the Boundary Transition Layer, will be the second phase of an experiment commenced on STS-119 in March this year.

Boundary Layer Transition is a process occurring during the shuttle re-entry as the smooth air flow along the shuttle’s heat shield becomes turbulent. The experiment will measure the heat difference between the air flow using sensors (thermometers) installed in particular tiles on the shield. A protuberance tile with a quarter inch (0.9cm) “speed bump” has been installed on Discovery’s heat shield. The tile will intentionally disrupt the smooth air flow and allow data gathering at Mach 18 during the re-entry.

Space Shuttle During Re-Entry - Source: NASA

24/7 coverage of the STS-128 mission will be available on NASA TV. You can also follow the Space Shuttle Discovery and the ISS in real time through NASA’s real time tracking. Information about out about visible ISS passes at your location is available from heavens-above.

The ground track of ISS with its current position - The dashed part of the orbit path shows where the satellite is in the earth's shadow, and the full part is where it is sunlit - Source: Heavens-Above.com

The next mission to the ISS will be STS-129 planned to launch on November 12 at 21:11 UTC. The Space Shuttle Atlantis will deliver two large External Logistics Carriers holding various instruments for the station.

Discovery next flight is scheduled for March 18, 2010. The STS-131 mission (assembly flight 19A) will deliver the the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module. The mission will also attach a spare ammonia tank assembly outside the station and return a European experiment that has been outside the Columbus module.

Space shuttle Discovery is poised for liftoff on the STS-128 mission. Photo credit: NASA/Troy Cryder

Although the next launch windows open on Thursday at 04:42:49 UTC (with preferred launch time at 04:47:49) and on Friday at 04:17:07 UTC (launch targeted for 04:22:07), the date and time of the next launch attempt are currently unknown. NASA engineers need to first gather data and to determine whether there was an actual problem with the valve itself or a faulty indicator was the culprit tonight.

Space Shuttle Discovery on the Launch Pad 39-A as the liquid oxygen starts to flow into the External Tank - Image Source: NASA TV

Update: Despite several launch windows with favorable ISS orbit alignment in the following days, Discovery’s last day to attempt the launch before mid-October is August 31 (at 03:11:21 UTC). Once the August 31 window closes (at 03:16:21 UTC) Discovery wouldn’t be able to undock before the Japanese and Russion missions arrive at the ISS.