Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

THE FINAL POST OF 2011... Just thought I'd conclude this year in human spaceflight by sharing the amazing video above and the stunning photos below. Clearly, it is an awesome privilege to be an astronaut, cosmonaut or any other living voyager cruising out in space...

Have a great 2012, everyone!


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The Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center

IMAGE OF THE DAY, Part 2... Check out this LEGO® model of SpaceX's Dragon vehicle. Neat.


Courtesy of Facebook

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IMAGES OF THE DAY... Three veteran astronauts, Oleg Kononenko, André Kuipers and Donald Pettit, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) courtesy of a Russian Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft on December 23, while an Expedition 30 crew member already aboard the ISS took this infrared photo of Los Angeles on the night of December 24 (Pacific Standard Time)...


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NASA / Dan Burbank

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! Just thought I’d celebrate the holiday by posting these truly amazing images of Comet Lovejoy passing near Earth. These awesome photos were taken by NASA astronaut Dan Burbank aboard the International Space Station on December 21 and 22. If these pics don’t astound you and make you appreciate the value of the space program (whether manned or unmanned), I don’t know what will.


NASA / Dan Burbank


NASA / Dan Burbank


NASA / Dan Burbank


NASA / Dan Burbank

NASA / Jim Grossmann

ATLANTIS DEACTIVATED... Less than a week after her sister ship Discovery was powered down for the last time, Atlantis’ own electrical systems were permanently turned off yesterday as progress continues to be made on prepping her for public display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex—which won’t take place for more than a year. Endeavour is the only remaining shuttle to have the monitors in her glass cockpit still show data...though this will no longer be the case come next February, when NASA’s youngest orbiter will be powered down for good as well.


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA / Jim Grossmann

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ORION Update... A parachute drop test for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) was conducted over the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona earlier today. This was in preparation for the MPCV's first sojourn into space...on the Exploration Flight Test-1 demonstration that will launch from Florida in early 2014.


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NASA / Sierra Nevada Corporation

IMAGES OF THE DAY... Here are a couple of art concepts—some new, some old—of the non-SpaceX-related commercial vehicles that are also being developed as future crew and cargo carriers to the International Space Station (ISS). Above is an artist’s rendition of Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, while below are illustrations of Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule, Boeing’s CST-100 vehicle, a composite photo of an Atlas V rocket with a CST-100 atop of it and artwork depicting the Liberty Launch Vehicle being proposed by Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) of Promontory, Utah. In today’s U.S. budget climate, it remains to be seen how many of these craft, which are being partially funded by NASA, will become operational in time to ferry astronauts and supplies to the ISS. We’ll see.


NASA / Blue Origin


NASA / Boeing


NASA / United Launch Alliance / ATK

NASA / Kim Shiflett

DISCOVERY DEACTIVATED... Earlier today, the two payload bay doors of the orbiter Discovery were closed for the last time at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Shortly thereafter, the vehicle was permanently powered down; with Discovery going from being a reusable space plane with almost 28 years of service to becoming a museum piece waiting to be transported to her final home in Virginia. Discovery will be rolled over from Orbiter Processing Facility-1, her present location, to the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC next month—where she will be placed in storage before finally being flown over to the Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia on April 12, 2012...31 years after Columbia launched on the first space shuttle flight, STS-1.


NASA / Kim Shiflet


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA / Jim Grossmann

NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis

ATLANTIS: Retirement Update #2... For the past two weeks, workers at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Visitor Complex have been clearing up space at KSC’s premiere tourist site to make room for a $100 million museum exhibit that will house the orbiter Atlantis more than a year from now. The first changes to be made were the removal of the two life-size solid rocket booster (SRB) replicas that were displayed outside of the Shuttle Launch Experience facility. A few days later, the external tank, or ET (which was actual flight hardware), was removed from its stand and transported to a temporary storage location near KSC. And last Sunday, the Explorer—a full-scale space shuttle mockup—was towed from the visitor complex to a loading dock near the Banana River where she will stay for the next couple of months. Explorer will then be placed onto a barge and transported down the Gulf Coast to Space Center Houston, Johnson Space Center’s visitor complex, in Texas for permanent display.



Posted directly above and below are pics I took of Explorer, the ET and SRBs at the visitor complex when I went to Kennedy Space Center in February of 2009. Construction on Atlantis’ exhibit will take place early next year.




NASA / Jim Grossman


NASA / Dmitri Gerondidakis

NASA / Jim Grossmann

ATLANTIS: Retirement Update #1... While the decommissioning of her sister ship Discovery nears completion inside Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF)-1 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, Atlantis’ retirement process continues in the adjacent OPF-2. Both Orbital Maneuvering System pods have now been removed from the orbiter since early November (as shown in the pics posted with this update), and will be sent to White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico for deservicing and cleaning before being returned to KSC for reinstallation onto Atlantis. The spacecraft is currently scheduled to be transported down the street to the KSC Visitor Complex, Atlantis’ final home, around February 1, 2013 (10 years after the loss of Columbia on STS-107). Details on the visitor complex’s preparation for Atlantis’ arrival will be discussed in the next entry.


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis