The Vertical Landing is a Huge Feat because

On December 22, 2015, spaceX made history by successfully put the payload into orbit, and returned the first stage safely back to earth and landed upright.

The vertical landing is in response to the challenge in flying reusable Falcon 9 Rocket:
http://aviationweek.com/blog/nasa-cnes-warn-spacex-challenges-flying-reusable-falcon-9-rocket

The Falcon 9 is already the lowest-cost rocket on the commercial market today. It is able to launch 5 million grams (4,850 kg) of payload to supersynchronous transfer orbit at roughly $60 million per launch, better than the Chinese Long March 3B at $70 million. The cost will be further lowered if they could reuse it as they've said the first stage is roughly 70% of the cost and just refueling the rocket costs about 0.3% of a full launch. Therefore, the potential to lower the cost is huge if they could pull off the vertical landing! That's why!!

The vertical landing made such a great splash that they shadowed the successful launch of 11 satellites into the orbit. People also forgot that it was the secondary target. The first being the successful launch. It is amusing to see this "been there, done that" kind of attitude. The primary target is already so risky, but since it has been achieved in the past, people are more interested in the secondary target. :) Here is the full video, enjoy!

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Apologies... this post has been moved to 
http://www.nabinkm.com/2012/05/end-of-mission-for-envisat-declared-by.html

NASA Space Shuttle missions

With the last flight of Atlantis (July 8 -21, 2011), NASA's 30-year Space Transportation System (STS) program came to an end on 21st July 2011. The Space Shuttle fleet delivered the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and dozens of satellites, space probes, crew and supplies. Two Shuttles were lost: Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. The touchdown of Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center marked the end of an era, after 135 missions. 

This video shows all of them in chronological order. 
From http://www.nature.com/spaceshuttle

Discovery Shuttle : Time Lapse

Here is a nice time lapse video of NASA shuttle launch. Who would not love to play with such big gadget! (There goes gadget contradiction!)

It has irritating ad in the beginning... I removed the embedded video for the same reason.

Please see the video located here...

http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/videos/Go-For-Launch.html



Source:
http://blog.planet5d.com/7sl

Chromoscope

Chromoscope is a site where one can see the Galaxy with Milky way stretching at the center.
The fun with the site is the fact that you can see it in different spectral range of electro-magnetic radiation.
It is educational and is recommended.



Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7-6fQ9_48




http://www.chromoscope.net/

What do you think?

Vote for Nepali Voice

If you were born after 1984 and eat and dream about space, have a history of participating and volunteering in such activities, go to OneYoungWorld

and submit a video. Who knows, you may also be selected!!!

Videos will be voted on by the YouTube community to determine the 100 best submissions. From these our panel of judges will then select the winning 20 videos. Whether you're from Australia or Zimbabwe, China or Kiribati; if chosen you will receive a fully-funded place at the One Young World summit in London on February 8-10 2010.

I met a Nepali thito participating in the competition and would like to request for your vote.

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your vote can enable Nepalese Voice to be heard in one young world conference. 

Please vote for Rijendra Thapa on the video "Youths of Voice of Developing Nation".

About the Video.

This is a two minute video uploaded for youtube contest to attend One young World Conference. He has nicely crafted his skills in showing his leadership qualities and his encouragement and inspiration to his generation to take positive action for change.

About the young world conference

It is a great forum to be held in London from February 8 -10 where 1500 delegates from 192 countries will discuss, debate and draft resolutions on six key issues covered in the plenary sessions-

The Environment and its Protection, 

Developing political leadership for a positive future, 

The role of Global business in shaping society through the economy, 

The media: its changing identity and power, 

Interfaith dialogue; world religion and spirituality, and 

the Global Health Agenda, 

in guidance of world leaders including Kofi Anan, Desmond tutu and Bob Geldof.

Steps to vote for Voice of Youths of Developing nation

1)Click in the link http://www.youtube.com/user/OneYoungWorld

2 )Go to vote gallery and click on Voice Of youth Of Developing nation.

3 ) When the video streams please vote:  green thumbs up.

About Rijendra Thapa

Rijendra Thapa is playing an active role in motivating younger generations of Nepal for better world. Rijendra, an Executive Founder member of Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) is carrying useful global projects of International Year of Astronomy, 2009. International Year of Science, 2009, space Generation Advisory Council, Student Exploration for Development of Space among Nepalese youths.

For more information on activities of  Rijendra and his organization NASO visit http://astronomy-nepal.blogspot.com/

- Rijendra Thapa

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Amazing Video of James Mays in a U2 spy plane to space

James Mays of  Top Gear (U.K.) takes an emotional ride to the edge of space in a U2 spyplane.
Just amazing!!!

New.Opportunities @ Space : Part 2

I am presenting the memories from my old page about Bremen, Germany.

Originally written on Date: 7th Dec. 2003
In Bremen:
I attended the UN/IAF workshop from 25 to 27 sep. jointly organized by them on the theme “Education and Capacity building in space technology for the benefit of Developing countries” with an emphasis on remote sensing applications. The participants presented papers and discussed under two categories ‘education’ & ‘application’ of space technology like how to use the remotely sensed data from Earth observation satellites to address issues of social & economic importance in such areas and land use management, the management of renewable & non renewable resources, disaster management &migration, global health and agricultural management, etc… The participants also emphasized that remote sensing is an essential tool to support the efforts to achieve sustainable development and capacity building in developing countries.
From the experiences, I could notice that remote sensing is a rapidly growing technology.
In the application of the remote sensing technology, education plays a pivotal role because without the expert human resources, the technology cannot run.
Some of the participants presented experiences of successful implementation and operational use of the technology including the continuous development of human resources.


The cost and access of data, involvement of decision makers, peaceful use of space were other hot topics of discussions.

The social events organized by the local organizing committee revealed the historical importance of Bremen City. I was greatly surprise to know that it is like our Katmandu but the difference is that Bremen has implemented the technology of 21st century including the satellite technology and also has preserved its own identity with regard to the ancient places.

The only problem we faced around the city was the language problem. The people of Bremen didn’t speak English and we could not speak Deutsch! . The communications problem was so interesting that we enjoyed it with their hearty welcomes and their lovely behaviour.

From 29th September to 3rd October there was an exciting event: International Astronantical Congress 2003 (IAC 2003).

More than 300 European students, including Canadian and Japanese students supported by ESA & IAF were participating in the 54th congress.

New.Opportunities @ Space : Part 1

I am presenting the memories from my old page about Bremen, Germany.

Originally written on Date: 7th Dec. 2003


On the month of July, there was a notice on our notice board forwarded by our head of the Department Prof. Dr. Lok Narayan Jha. It had invited applications for participation in the annual space congress organized by International Astonautical Federation (IAF) for The International Astonautical Congress "IAC 2003 space congress" to be held in Bremen, Germany [29th Sept- 3rd Oct 2003]. After consulting with my Thesis supervisor Prof. Dr. Uday Raj Khanal, I applied with reference to the notice. After the selection process, I was selected as a “representative student of T.U.”
On 11th September evening there was a call for me from the Netherlands. It gave one of the best news in my life “you have been selected.” Actually the notification had been send to me by 1st Sept but I had not checked my e-mail. So, I could not respond the mail, and thus was phoned by Dorothea Czernik. On the phone she told me many things and asked to arrange the things if I was interested. Surely I was interested.

Background of the program

The European space agency (ESA) provided the opportunity under the student participation program. The sponsorship, of non European student, was only for 6 non European student from developing countries. There were altogether 5 who could participate under this program. Among them one each was from Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt and two from Nepal including me and my colleague Mr. Nabin Paudel.

After I could manage all the paper/official works, I departed to Bremen via Doha and Munich. It was my first time and I cannot describe my words how was I feeling. During this phase all my relatives and friends helped and encouraged me. I am thankful to them all. Finally it took about 20/24 hours to reach Bremen.

Space Race: back to back!

 

From BBC: Two shuttles on the launch pad at the same time. Because Atlantis (near) cannot reach the safety of the space station if something goes wrong on its upcoming servicing mission to the Hubble telescope, Endeavour (far) must be on standby for a rescue mission.