We’re not just sending Curiosity to Mars for fun. This giant rover has several missions it will attempt to accomplish in one martian year which is nearly 2 Earth Years. The goals are to determine if life could have ever been there, characterize the climate and geology of this alien world, and finally, help prepare for human exploration of this alien world.

NASA is known for its awesome Twitter accounts and the Curiosity Rover is no exception. If you would like to follow real-time update via the tweety bird, hit up the official account @MarsCuriosity or visit the web site via the far more complicated URL which is mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl… Or the bit.ly link at the bottom of your screen will bring you there too.

If you missed the Launch that’s OK! There are plenty of additional rocket launches coming up, and here’s a quick list of everything you can watch or tweet about.

Finally, if you’re a space geek or interested in what is happening within the cosmos, don’t forget to subscribe to our yoUTube channel. Click the big yellow button and new videos will be automagically added to your YouTube homepage from Spacevidcast. We also have a Twitter account @spacevidcast or you can hit up our web site. Spread the word and help us make space exciting again!

Speaking of NewSpace, Virgin Galactic is looking beyond sub-orbital tourist flights to LEO and even uber short trips between continents. Beyond just awesome space trips, it is possible that Virgin Galactic will change how we fly and make the world an even smaller place.

We may spend a lot of time talking about the larger NewSpace companies such as SpaceX, but in this episode we look at a couple of the smaller entities that are doing some amazing things with next to zero budget.

NASA has returned some beautiful videos of the shuttle attached to the ISS while ESA wants to make sure we don’t go stir crazy during our ride to Mars.

All that, a bit of Spacevidcast crazy and your questions answered on this Jun 10th, 2011 edition of Spacevidcast Live.

On Wednesday, December 15th 2010 a Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off carrying the next 3 crew members bound for the International Space Station. Then on Friday the 17th the capsule docked with the space station at 20:11 UT. A couple of hours later The expanded Expedition 26/27 crew opened the hatch and ingressed to the station. The three person crew of Soyuz TMA-20, Dmitri Kon-drat-yev, Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli represent the partner organizations of Roscosmos, NASA and the European Space Agency in the ISS program.

While the US and Russia added more people to the Space Station, China launched a rocket to add more satellites to their upcoming GPS constellation this last Friday. A new satellite navigation and positioning network or Compass System was launched aboard a Long March 3A rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 20:20 UT. This is the 2nd of what will be 35 satellites providing both civilian and military GPS data to China.

Being that we just saw a lunar eclipse, how about a new way to look at the moon? NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO is orbiting the moon creating the most precise and complete map to date of the moons complex surface. Originally launched to help scout out landing sites for the nearly defunct Constellation program, LRO remains in Lunar Orbit gathering data. Using an instrument called the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter or LOLA the spacecraft sends a single laser pulse down to the lunar surface through an optical element that splits the pulse in to 5 beams. These 5 beams then strike the surface of the moon and depending on how long it takes for each to return, LOLA is able to map out what the surface terrain looks like. The end result are some psychedelic pictures of our moon. By artificially adding color in we can get a good idea as to what the surface of the moon looks like. The red areas indicate high elevation whereas the blue areas are the lowest. You can get more pictures and videos at NASA’s LRO web site.

Ever wish you could get rocket and shuttle launch notifications sent to your iPhone? Maybe countdown to the next launch on your iPod Touch? Well now you can! MissionClock is a $5.00 application available now in the iTunes Apple store for iOS devices. This awesome space geek app allows you to see what upcoming missions are launching, when they will launch and even get mission details. It is a great showpiece to help get your friends excited about space flight and for the next 24 hours Spacevidcast is giving away 10 copies to 10 lucky winners! It’s easy to enter! Simply send out a tweet with a link to this video and the hash tag #spacevidcast and you’ll be automatically entered! The contest starts December 21st, 2010 at midnight UT and ends at 23:59 UT the same day. You have nearly 24 hours to enter to win! And if you think this is a cool prize, you should see what we’re giving away during our live show this Friday at 0200 UT. It’s going to be awesome and I know we’ll see you there!

Nexus S in Near Space

New Master Plan for KSC Visitor Complex; includes new space shuttle orbiter home design

iPods in to Space?

Virgin Galactic to go to LEO?

Shuttle Fueling Tests on Friday

Launch costs going up, not down

Yesterday we talked a bit about Orbital Sciences plan to submit a proposal to NASA under Commercial Crew Development 2. Today we have a bit more info and a picture! According to a press release by Orbital the company will be seeking funding from NASA for a “blended lifting body vehicle” which will launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket and return to Earth with a conventional runway landing. Looks a bit like a small version of the space shuttle. The idea is that this vehicle could carry 3 astronauts and 1 paying tourist to the International Space Station and could have test flights as early as 2014. If the Atlas 5 rocket doesn’t work, don’t fret, Orbital says that the vehicle would be flexible enough to launch atop other vehicles. Now imagine finding a lower cost launch vehicle such as something from SpaceX and the amount of money required to put humans in to low Earth orbit may plummet!

Speaking of human space flight, Russia is gearing up to send 3 astronauts to the International Space Station, Cady Coleman, Paolo Nespoli and Dmitry Kondratyev. Lifting off from the Gagarin Launch Pad today at 19:09 UTC the Expedition 26/27 crew will dock with the space station this Friday at 20:12 UTC. Tune in to Spacevidcast to watch this launch live! If you have never seen a Russian launch before, they are a lot of fun. One translator for all crew members make for some very interesting comms chat! Oh, and unlike here in the US, Russia has a camera inside the Soyuz cockpit, so you can watch the crew bounce around and shake as they ascend to space.

A bit further out in the cosmos we have the Voyager 1 Spacecraft which is nearing the edge of our solar system. Ponder that for a moment, humans have created a craft that is now at the very edge of our own solar system! That is nearly 11 BILLION miles away from our sun! So far in fact that the speed of the solar wind is basically zero. Fret not, Voyager 1 is still traveling at 10.5 miles per second and for the foreseeable future will remain the most distant object humans from Earth created by Humans. Someday soon Voyager 1 will reach a planet of artificial life forms where will will be transformed in to a large city. Over time the name will wear off of its nameplate and it will only know itself as VEGER to be later discovered by Captian Kirk of the starship Enterprise.

If you have a Roku box make sure you install the Spacevidcast channel. In the Live section you can watch as the next Martian Rover, Curiosity, is built by NASA! It’s pretty cool to see engineers working on something that will be crawling on the surface of another planet in 2012. To get there just open up the Spacevidcast channel, click on Live Feeds then click on Curiosity Cam. Don’t have a Roku box! Here’s your chance to win. Tune in to Spacevidcast’s live show this Friday at 0200 UTC where we will be giving away a FREE Roku HD unit. The only way to win is to watch live. For those of you in the US that’s Thursday nights at 6:00pm PST or 9:00pm EST. We’ll see you there!

The big news this last week was that Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX has become the first company in the world to have a spacecraft launch, orbit the Earth, re-enter our atmosphere and be safely recovered. Until now only 3 countries have been able to accomplish this: the US, Russia and China. Here’s a quick review of the launch itself just in case you missed it

And while watching a Falcon 9 lifoff from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, I think watching the Dragon module separate from the upper stage was even more exciting!

This is just the beginning. The Dragon capsule still needs to have the photovoltaic cells, or solar panels added for energy generation and additional maneuvering/docking tests need to be completed before SpaceX will be able to start officially carrying out its cargo transportation contract with NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services or COTS contract.

Just as SpaceX is starting to spin up production, NASA is winding down the Space Shuttle program. Last week the final 3 Space Shuttle Main Engines or SSMEs were installed in Atlantis for the Launch on Need Mission and potential final flight of the Space Shuttle Program: STS-135. Each engine is 14 feet long, weighs 6,700 pounds and is 7.5 feet in diameter at the end of the nozzle.

Now that things have settled down a bit over here, it is our hope that we will resume our live show this Friday at 0200 UTC. We’ll have our Roku HD giveaway where you can win a FREE Roku box allowing you to watch Spacevidcast live on your HDTV! The only way to win is to watch live. For those of you in the US that would be Thursday night at 6:00pm pacific standard time or 9:00pm eastern standard time. We’ll see you there!

We’re back! Maybe we should take a break more often. While Spacevidcast was on hiatus we found an exoplanet that could be earth like, Discovery rolled out to the pad, and China launched a lunar probe. Yup, China’s going to the moon. Er… I mean they are already there.

On October 1st The China National Space Administration launched Chang’e 2 aboard a Long March 3C rocket.

Once in space the satellite would do a pretty direct beline to the moon and is the first time the Chinese space program has put a satellite in to earth-moon transfer orbit without having to circle the Earth first. This of course meant that the vehicle had quite a bit of oomph when reaching the moon and it would need to successfully carry out 3 braking maneuvers to get in to a stable lunar orbit. On Saturday, October 9th that’s exactly what it did as it successfully carried out the third and final braking maneuver putting Chang’e 2 in to a 100km high position above Luna.

Now that China has their second satellite around the moon they will carry out recon for their next phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. Chang’e 2 is the last craft in phase 1 then Phase 2 will have Chang’e 3 which will put lunar rovers on the moon some time around 2013. Phase 3 will continue building upon their previous missions with Chang’e 4 automating the return of lunar soil back to Earth some time around 2017. What does all of this add up to? Well China is looking to put humans on the moon some time around 2025.

But hang on! This space race can’t just have one contestant! India is not going to let China beat them to the punch! The Indian Space Research Organization has targeted 2020 as the date that they want to put humans back on the moon. Back in 2008 India had a successful unmanned lunar mission with Chandrayaan-1 and in 2013 they are looking to expand on that success with Chandrayaan-2.

This is all great news! We’ll be watching with baited breath to see who really puts humans back on the moon first: China, India or maybe a possible third as of yet unknown variable such as SpaceX or Armadillo or Masten Space Systems. Who knows, but it sure is fun to watch!

For now we’ll just wait for some of the high-resolution imagery from Chang’e 2 to come back. China will be taking a close look at the lava-flooded Bay of Rainbows as that could be a possible landing site for Chang’e 3. And by the way… Does anyone else want to hit a big red button to launch a giant rocket? I know I do!