Saturn's moon Mimas

Saturn's moon Mimas peeps out from behind the larger moon Dione in this view from the Cassini spacecraft.
Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers across) is near the bottom center of the image. Saturn's rings are also visible in the top right.

This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across). North on Dione is up and rotated 20 degrees to the right. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 12, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 377,000 miles (606,000 kilometers) from Mimas. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 56,000 miles (91,000 kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 42 degrees. Image scale is 1,773 feet (541 meters) per pixel on Dione.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Sonic Boom Generator

If human beings are ever to fly faster than the speed of sound from one side of the country to another, we first have to figure out how to reduce the level of sonic boom generated by supersonic flight.

Earlier this fall, a subscale model of a potential future low-boom supersonic aircraft designed by The Boeing Company was installed for testing in the supersonic wind tunnel at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

This model is a larger of two models used in the test. The model contains a force measurement balance used to capture force measurements (lift, drag). Depending on the type of test and on the tunnel, the model can be oriented any way. Pictured here, the model is actually upside down.

Another smaller model was used to capture measurements of the off-body pressures that create a sonic boom.

The tests are among those being conducted by NASA and its partners to identify technologies and designs to achieve a level of sonic boom so low that it barely registers on buildings and people below.

More onthe AC72

The Oracle team, headquartered at Pier 80 south of the Bay Bridge, dispatched nine safety boats to try to right the craft or tow it back. But the current, driven by the strongest tide of the year, was too much, and the helpless Oracle crews could only accompany the vessel as it was swept 4 miles west of the Golden Gate.

Tom Slingsby, the tactician of Oracle Team USA 17 - the 72-foot racing yacht - said the flip occurred in stiff winds of about 24 knots as he and the rest of the crew were "pushing the limits of the boat." Tuesday marked the eighth time the crew had taken the craft onto the water since its August launch.

Slingsby said the wing was destroyed. "We didn't really know what to expect with the new boat," he said. "When the nose went into the water, most of us hung on and then jumped off. Everyone has a few bumps and bruises, but nothing serious."

Oracle team spokeswoman Lisa Ramsperger said crews would attempt to tow the boat to Pier 80 for repairs. That task was expected to last well into the night and possibly into Wednesday.

Ramsperger said she could not estimate how long repairs will take or the cost.

On the AC72's first voyage, the centerboard broke off and the boat was idled two weeks for repairs. The issue for Oracle now is that their boat will be out of action for some time while they do repairs. And that will adversely affect their training and their assessment of the craft.

Oracle is preparing a second AC72 boat, but it won't be ready until February.

From the SF Chronicle

More shots of AC 72

Here are a couple more shots of the Oracle flip. From what I have heard, the wing sail is gone and they towed the hull to shore, no word on if the hull is seriously damaged. The crew made it through without injury, but the conditions of the bay when they flipped is what the boats with have to deal with during the actual AC next summer. 25 knots is not uncommon and if the boats over-power there is not much that can be done to stop a flip. What it looked like was the boat turned down wind and the huge wing pushed the front under.

The giant wing just kept the pressure on the boat and since the front was underwater, the wing just push the boat end over end. Once over, the wasn't much they could do to flip it back over, it is just to big. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Maybe Team New Zealand will also flip???

Oracle goes over..

http://youtu.be/drgglIebuQY

Here is the link to the flip of the AC72 yesterday on the bay. The wing is gone and the hull was towed back upside-down. A very costly crash but it was expected that one of these would flip at some time. It is a learning experience for the crew.

AC 72 flips in the bay...

Oracle’s AC72 took on a 25-knot (gusting higher) afternoon in San Francisco Bay today, and it all went wrong when a big gust sent her over on her side.  The wing broke up leaving something of a yard sale behind as she was towed back to base.

Tulip

Love these classic looking modern boats. This is a 88 footer, would love to take a ride on this.

Portland Rose Gardens

In Portland Oregon, Roses are the city’s official flower. In several of the city’s parks, there are very large rose gardens. In the large Washington Park, there is the Rose Test Garden. Here there is a very large select of roses of all types and colors. The flowers are now starting to come to an end, but there are still a number of flowers and it is still nice to walk, though on wet grass, and see the fall flowers.

Future in air travel???

Concept aircraft

Three industry teams spent 2011 studying how to meet NASA's goals for making future aircraft burn 50 percent less fuel than aircraft that entered service in 1998, emit 75 percent fewer harmful emissions; and shrink the size of geographic areas affected by objectionable airport noise by 83 percent.

Supersonic

Our ability to fly at supersonic speeds over land in civil aircraft depends on our ability to reduce the level of sonic booms. NASA has been exploring a variety of options for quieting the boom, starting with design concepts and moving through wind tunnel tests to flight tests of new technologies. This rendering of a possible future civil supersonic transport shows a vehicle that is shaped to reduce the sonic shockwave signature and also to reduce drag.

Lockheed Martin's advanced vehicle concept proposes a box wing design, which is now feasible thanks to modern lightweight composite (nonmetallic) materials, landing gear technologies and other advancements. Its Rolls Royce Liberty Works Ultra Fan Engine achieves a bypass ratio (flow of air around engine compared to through the engine) nearly five times greater than current engines, pushing the limits of turbofan technology to maximize efficiency.

Cassini spacecraft celebrates 15 years....

Today, NASA's Cassini spacecraft celebrates 15 years of uninterrupted drive time, earning it a place among the ultimate interplanetary road warriors.

Orbital track around Saturn

Since launching on Oct. 15, 1997, the spacecraft has logged more than 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion kilometers) of exploration - enough to circle Earth more than 152,000 times. After flying by Venus twice, Earth, and then Jupiter on its way to Saturn, Cassini pulled into orbit around the ringed planet in 2004 and has been spending its last eight years weaving around Saturn, its glittering rings and intriguing moons.

And, lest it be accused of refusing to write home, Cassini has sent back some 444 gigabytes of scientific data so far, including more than 300,000 images. More than 2,500 reports have been published in scientific journals based on Cassini data, describing the discovery of the plume of water ice and organic particles spewing from the moon Enceladus; the first views of the hydrocarbon-filled lakes of Saturn's largest moon Titan; the atmospheric upheaval from a rare, monstrous storm on Saturn and many other curious phenomena.

"As Cassini conducts the most in-depth survey of a giant planet to date, the spacecraft has been flying the most complex gravity-assisted trajectory ever attempted," said Robert Mitchell, Cassini program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Each flyby of Titan, for example, is like threading the eye of the needle. And we've done it 87 times so far, with accuracies generally within about one mile [1.6 kilometers], and all controlled from Earth about one billion miles [1.5 billion kilometers] away."

Fountains of Enceladus

The complexity comes in part from the spacecraft lining up visits to more than a dozen of Saturn's 60-plus moons and sometimes swinging up to get views of poles of the planet and moons. Cassini then works its way back to orbiting around Saturn's equator, while staying on track to hit its next targeted flyby. The turn-by-turn directions that mission planners write also have to factor in the gravitational influences of the moons and a limited fuel supply.

"I'm proud to say Cassini has accomplished all of this every year on-budget, with relatively few health issues," Mitchell said. "Cassini is entering middle age, with the associated signs of the passage of years, but it's doing remarkably well and doesn't require any major surgery."

The smooth, white paint of the high-gain antenna probably now feels rough to the touch, and some of the blankets around the body of the spacecraft are probably pitted with tiny holes from micrometeoroids. But Cassini still retains redundancy on its critical engineering systems, and the team expects it to return millions more bytes of scientific data as it continues to sniff, taste, watch and listen to the Saturn system.

And that's a good thing, because Cassini still has a daring, unique mission ahead of it. Spring has only recently begun to creep over the northern hemisphere of Saturn and its moons, so scientists are only beginning to understand the change wrought by the turning of the seasons. No other spacecraft has been able to observe such a transformation at a giant planet.

Starting in November 2016, Cassini will begin a series of orbits that wind it ever closer to Saturn. Those orbits kick off just outside Saturn's F ring, the outermost of the main rings. Then in April 2017, one final close encounter with Titan will put Cassini on a trajectory that will pass by Saturn inside its innermost ring, a whisper away from the top of Saturn's atmosphere. After 22 such close passes, the gravitational perturbation from one final distant Titan encounter will bring Cassini ever closer. On Sept. 15, 2017, after entry into Saturn's atmosphere, the spacecraft will be crushed and vaporized by the pressure and temperature of Saturn's final embrace to protect worlds like Enceladus and Titan, with liquid water oceans under their icy crusts that might harbor conditions for life.