Gadgets Blog

A fisheye lens attached to an electronic still camera was used to capture this image of NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Expedition 31 flight engineer, in the transfer compartment between the Zarya Functional Cargo Block (FGB) and the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station. ISS031-E-030465 (12 May 2012) --- high res (2.0 M) low res (115 K)

Image above: A technician guides a cargo bag into the Dragon spacecraft at the SpaceX facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann

The Dragon spacecraft built by SpaceX will head to the International Space Station with about 1,200 pounds of cargo during its demonstration mission, including commemorative patches and pins, 162 meals and a collection of student experiments.

Engineer Eric Trautmann checks on Yeti during a test of the robot in October 2010 along the South Pole Traverse route through the McMurdo shear zone. The goal was to compare GPR quality and rover utility with a manual GPR system mounted in a Pisten Bully. Photo Credit: Jim Lever

Team members of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission took a test rover to Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert this week to improve knowledge of the best way to operate a similar rover, Curiosity, currently flying to Mars for an August landing.

The test rover that they put through paces on various sandy slopes has a full-scale version of Curiosity's mobility system, but it is otherwise stripped down so that it weighs about the same on Earth as Curiosity will weigh in the lesser gravity of Mars.

As this computer animation shows, Dragon will approach the International Space Station, with Canadarm2 grappling the capsule in free flight and docking it to the station. (Credit: CSA).

On May 10th, 2012 Project Morpheus successfully fired off tether test 15 and commanded a successful soft abort.