NASA spacecraft begins trek out of our solar system

A NASA spacecraft is speeding out and away from our solar system and will make the first leap into interstellar space at any moment according to scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Voyager 1's exit will begin giving astrophysicists new data accounts of life outside the solar system.

The planetary satellite was launched nearly 34 years ago and continues to transmit data back to earth about the space around the craft powered by nuclear batteries.

It is this data sent back since last December and into February which began informing scientists at JPL that the spacecraft is no longer registering any solar wind activity and has moved into the outermost region of our solar system where there is no solar wind at the edge of the heliopause.

Our Sun emits solar wind which are super charged particles that soar out to the edge of the heliosphere estimated at some 9.3 billion miles or greater from the Sun.

"These calculations show we're getting close, but how close?" asks Ed Stone, a Voyager project scientist based at Pasadena's California Institute of Technology. "That's what we don't know, but Voyager 1 speeds outward a billion miles every three years, so we may not have long to wait."

NASA suggests that the spacecraft will become the first human built object to arrive outside the solar system before 2013.

Voyager 1 travels through space at a rate of 320 million miles a year, or the distance of 3.5 astronomical units.

Our solar system is made up of our Sun and planets located in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Launched from Cape Canaveral on September 5, 1977, Voyager 1 passed by the great planet of Jupiter in 1979, and took closeup images of Saturn in 1980, pictures which redefined what scientists knew about the make up of the planet's rings.

As of 9:00 a.m. EDT today, Voyager was located 10,837,307,002 miles from earth.

Voyager is expected to operate through 2020 according to JPL.

As Voyager 1 becomes the first man made object to leave our heliospere, it's sister craft Voyager 2 is located two billion miles away and should leave the solar system two years later.

North America treated to total lunar eclipse

The moon during Tuesday morning's eclipse in this NASA image.

Overcast skies across the Unites States forced many amateur astronomers inside to watch Tuesday morning's lunar eclipse by way of live video on the Internet.

Clouds over much of the country disappointed astronomers from watching the celestial show on this the first day of winter as the earth wedged between the Sun and the moon.

Low clouds over metro Atlanta forced many residents to give up their backyard moon parties and observations and head indoors.

Bill Sullivan of Lawrenceville, Georgia, was one resident dejected by the cloudy evening.

"My son and I had hoped to watch the eclipse, but I guess we'll just have to watch it on TV or something," he told this reported by phone.

Along the Texas Gulf Coast, residents were treated to an astronomical show as clear skies prevailed.

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the earth moves between the Sun and the moon, thus the Sun's light is blocked from reflecting off the moon's surface. The Sun's rays however do pass through the earth's atmosphere generating an orange to red light upon the moon's surface.

Just as predicted, the totality, or time when the earth's shadow fully covered the 1,060 mile wide face of the moon, began at 2:41 a.m. EST, and lasted just over seventy minutes.

The earth's dark shadow then gave way to a redish light upon the lunar surface as the Sun's light beamed through our planet's atmosphere.

Several observers in the south described the total eclipse to this reporter as looking like a "copper penny" or "copper and red".

A camera aboard the International Space Station was able to catch several dramatic views of the eclipse from 220 miles above earth.

On a historic note, the last time a lunar eclipse occurred on the first day of the winter solstice was 372 years ago -- Dec. 21, 1638. A time when Galileo de' Galilei, the father of modern astronomy, was alive and well in Italy.

The next total lunar eclipse to be visible from North America will happen again in April 2014.

Delta IV primed to launch new weather satellite

A new American weather satellite is ready to begin a decade long mission next week to photograph and study our planet and the effects solar weather has upon our big blue marble.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA are responsible for the GOES-P meteorological satellite which will be used to take high resolution detailed images of the planet's weather systems, and use computer generated data to make a more accurate forecast on expected weather trends.

Launch of a United Launch Alliance Delta IV is set for Wednesday, March 3 at 6:17pm EST (2317 GMT) -- the beginning of a one hour launch window -- from space launch complex 37-B here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Lift-off was targeted for two days earlier, however a flight readiness meeting on Feb. 26th pointed out the need to replace a solid rocket motor's steering control valve. And, on Monday, the ground crew needed extra time to replace a quick disconnect valve in a fuel line.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite -P will make observations of 60% of the earth's surface, including all of the western hemisphere from it's perch 22,300 miles above the equator.

Among the several instruments on board the GOES P is the Solar X-ray Imager. The SXI is an x-ray telescope which will monitor solar activity and it's effects on earth. The telescope will take a detailed image of the Sun each minute for analysis. This will help in early detection of huge solar flares which can interfere with radio and television broadcasts.

The Space Environment Monitor is a multi-instrument space weather detection device on the weather satellite, and will assist in special space weather forecasts for astronauts on the International Space Station and high altitude aircraft and jets.

This latest GOES satellite arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, touching down aboard a military cargo craft from it's manufacturing plant in California on December 17th.

The payload was then transferred west across the Indian River into Titusville and the AstroTech Facility for prelaunch preparations.

At launch, the Delta IV's main stage RS-68 engine will ignite followed by its twin solid fueled boosters as the spacecraft begins it's trip to orbit.

Launching in a flight azimuth of 95 degrees, the Delta IV will travel toward the east-southeast away from the Cape.

Following an on time launch, the twin boosters will burn out and then separate from the core booster at 6:20:40 pm, as it travels 17 miles above the coral waters 13 miles off Florida's coastline.

Spacecraft separation is planned for 10:40:26 pm later that evening.

In June 2009,the GOES-O launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a Delta IV.

NASA Solar Observatory set for Wednesday Launch

A NASA satellite will embark on a multi-year mission to research and the Sun's effect on earth, as well as the dynamics of the solar flares which create space weather.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory was cleared for launch aboard an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, FL on Wednesday morning at 10:26:00 am EST. The launch window is one hour.

The spacecraft will operate using three science gathering instruments, and according to NASA when the amount of data starts to flow in it will get busy.

The main source of data collection will come from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, or AIA. Using four photographic telescopes, AIA will focus on the Sun's atmosphere going all the way down to the surface photographing with much greater detail what it observes than on past solar missions.

SDO will send back nearly 1 GB of data about the solar weather every 36 seconds, according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"SDO is going to send us images ten times better than high definition television," says Dean Pesnell, the project scientist for the SDO mission. "A typical HDTV screen has 720 by 1280 pixels; SDO's images will have almost four times that number in the horizontal direction and five times in the vertical. “The pixel count is comparable to an IMAX movie -- an IMAX filled with the raging sun, 24 hours a day."

Pesnell also adds that the science team will receive "IMAX-quality images every ten seconds".

A second experiment The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) focuses on the outer shell of the Sun as it studies the magnetic field. The instrument will basically study the photosphere (Sun's surface) as it looks at the billions of ripples which move across the surface every day. These studies will help scientists at Stanford University work to figure out the Sun's internal makeup and activity.

SpaceLaunchNews.com will have LIVE launch coverage beginning at 8AM EST on Wednesday. Follow our updates via Twitter: @spacelaunchnews.