Workers removing the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate on the shuttle external fuel tank. Image credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

The hydrogen leak keeping the shuttle Endeavour  and STS-127  on the ground was determined to be a misalignment in a couple of plates on the External tank.  On June 24, the plates were removed and the problems were thought to be corrected.  The only way to be sure is to refill the External tank.  I had a couple of comments a while back wondering why the leaks could not be found before, and the answer has to do with the fact the tank has to be nearly full inorder for the vent valve to cycle.

This morning the “fix” was put to the test and by all accounts everything looks good.  While more details will be forthcoming the early press release is very positive.  Looks like STS-127 is ready to fly!

Here’s the press release:

Space shuttle Endeavour’s tanking test officially began at 6:52 a.m. EDT at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. No abnormal gaseous hydrogen leaks were detected during the test, which involved filling Endeavour’s external fuel tank with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen just as it is on launch day.

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The Shadow of Mimas shows up against the mother planet (Saturn). Click for a bit larger version. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Here’s a nice “natural” color image of Saturn and the shadow of the moon Mimas.

I had a dickens of a time finding Mimas (below the dark band and just a bit right of center). The screen on this laptop is pretty cruddy and didn’t help matters.

You have to look pretty close to see the faint rings too; their shadow however shows up great.

Anybody know a good way of cleaning the screen without scratching it?

Gotta run, thunderstorms are about to hit.

From the Cassini website:

The shadow of the moon Mimas has just slipped off Saturn’s rings and onto the planet in this Cassini spacecraft image.

The shadow is visible as a short dash below the rings’ shadows on the planet. At this exposure setting, the rings are too dim to be seen easily. As Saturn approaches its August 2009 equinox, the planet’s moons cast shadows onto the rings. To learn more about this special time and to see a movie of a moon’s shadow moving across the rings, see Moon Shadow in Motion.

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Chandra and the ESO team up for this image of RCW 86. Click for larger (~76). Credit: Optical: ESO/E. Helder; X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al.

RCW 86 is a southern hemisphere supernova remnant reminding me of the Eastern Veil, a nice target here in the northern hemisphere.

Pretty amazing that the supernova causing this beautiful sight was seen on earth ages ago by the Chinese. Makes me wonder what they were thinking about it.

The Chandra caption:

This image of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope shows a part of the roughly circular supernova remnant known as RCW 86. This remnant is the remains of an exploded star, which may have been observed on Earth in 185 AD by Chinese astronomers. By studying this remnant, a team of astronomers was able to understand new details about the role of supernova remnants as the Milky Way’s super-efficient particle accelerators. The team shows that the shock wave visible in this area is very efficient at accelerating particles and the energy used in this process matches the number of cosmic rays observed on Earth.

The VLT data (colored red in the composite) was used to measure the temperature of the gas right behind the shock wave created by the stellar explosion. Using X-ray images from Chandra (blue), taken three years apart, the researchers were also able to determine the speed of the shock wave to be between one and three percent of the speed of light. The temperature found by these latest results is much lower than expected, given the measured shock wave’s velocity. The researchers conclude that the missing energy goes into accelerating the cosmic rays.

It might be just me, or unique to this area, but the forecast reliability around has gone down hill over the past few years.  Let’s hope this helps.

Got the video here

Valleys Carved into Elysium Mons. Click for larger. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Glad to see the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is back in business.

Here’s the details on the image  from the HiRISE website and written by Shawn D. Hart:

This image is of the flanks of the shield volcano Elysium Mons.

The volcano is considered to be the youngest within the Elysium Mons province, which also contains the volcanoes Hecates, Tholus, and Albor Tholus.

Of course, “young” is a relative term. The last eruption of Elysium Mons could well have been a billion years or more ago.

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The rover Spirit gives us this color view of the soil it is stuck in. Click for a bit larger version. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

The Martian rover Spirit may be stuck, but it is making the most of the situation. Spirit is examining the area in great detail, turns out there is three layers to the soil it is mired in. While mission managers are figuring a way to get “unstuck” they will be learning about the different layers. Oh and the mission managers are for the moment optimisitic they can get Spirit free. If you would like a really large version of the image, click the link below and you will find it.

Here’s the caption for the image from NASA:

The soft soil exposed when wheels of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit dug into a patch of ground dubbed “Troy” exhibit variations in hue visible in this image, in which the colors have been stretched to emphasize the differences.

Spirit used its panoramic camera during the 1,892nd Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (April 29, 2009) to take the three images combined into this composite image. The three images were taken through filters centered at wavelengths of 750 nanometers, 530 nanometers and 430 nanometers. Spirit had become embedded at Troy by about a week later.

The two rocks near the upper right corner of this view are each about 10 centimeters (4 inches) long and 2 to 3 centimeters (1 inch) wide.