Hydrogen rocket fuel

James Dean Florida Today Published 7:56 PM EDT Oct 12, 2018 MELBOURNE, Fla. – NASA and its partners in a few weeks will celebrate 18 years of uninterrupted human presence on the International Space Station, a remarkable achievement dating to the first long-duration crew’s arrival on Nov. 2, 2000. But Thursday’s aborted launch by a Russian rocket – one that provides astronauts’ only ride to the station – raised the risk that crews might need to abandon the $100 billion laboratory complex early next year if the rocket issue isn’t resolved quickly. The Soyuz spacecraft slated to take three Expedition 57 crew members home must depart the station by early January, unless officials waive the usual limits on how much time it can spend in orbit. If a new crew doesn’t arrive before then, the station could be left empty for the first time in nearly two decades. Oct. 12: US, Russian astronauts reach Russia after emergency landing … [Read more...] about Soyuz rocket failure could leave space station without crew

Christopher Salvemini Knoxville News Sentinel Published 3:40 PM EDT Oct 2, 2018 Space rockets may one day be fueled by tap water instead of gas tanks, thanks to research from the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The Department of Energy recently awarded a team of researchers from UT and ORNL a $2 million grant to decrease the cost to produce hydrogen fuel cells. The DOE also granted a separate $1.5 million to a UT-led team for research on more efficient fuel cells. These research efforts could help make hydrogen viable as fuel storage and limit environmental damage from burning fossil fuels. Feng Zhang, UT associate professor in aerospace engineering and member of NanoHELP, is leading the first project to reduce the cost produce fuel cells. Matthew Mench, the department head for Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering at UT, is also on the team. The second project is led by Thomas Zawodzinski, … [Read more...] about UT, ORNL hydrogen fuel cell research earns $3.5 million DOE grant

James Dean Florida Today Published 9:48 p.m. UTC Aug 12, 2018 Some scientists scoffed at University of Chicago physicist Eugene Parker’s 1958 paper proposing the existence of a solar wind — a constant stream of particles flowing out from the sun that permeates the entire solar system. Spacecraft quickly proved him right, and 60 years later, Parker looked on early Sunday as a NASA probe bearing his name rocketed from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a $1.5 billion mission to “touch” the sun and solve some of its persisting mysteries. “All I have to say is, wow, here we go,” said Parker, 91, after the launch he watched from Kennedy Space Center. “We’re in for some learning over the next several years.” On its second attempt, the Parker Solar Probe — NASA’s first mission named for a living person — rumbled from the Space Coast at 3:31 a.m. Sunday atop one of the most powerful … [Read more...] about Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA’s Parker Solar Probe to study the sun