A robotic Russian cargo vessel blasted off today (Oct. 31), carrying nearly 3 tons of supplies on a Halloween delivery mission to the International Space Station.
The unmanned Progress 49 spacecraft launched from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome at 3:41 a.m. EDT (0741 GMT) today and is slated to arrive at the orbiting lab six hours later. You can watch the rendezvous and docking activities live here on NASA TV, beginning at 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT).
Progress 49 is toting 2.9 tons of supplies, including 2,050 pounds (930 kilograms) of propellant, 926 pounds (420 kg) of water, 62 pounds (28 kg) of oxygen and 2,738 pounds (1,242 kg) of spare parts, NASA officials said. There's no word yet on whether any candy corn or miniature chocolate bars made it onboard to help the space station's six astronauts celebrate the season.
Life on orbit is always busy, but this week is particularly jam-packed for station crew.
For example, today's launch comes just three days after SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule left the station, wrapping up the first-ever commercial cargo mission to the $100 billion orbiting complex. Dragon splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja California coast on Sunday afternoon (Oct. 28).
Dragon will make at least 11 more flights to the station under a $1.6 billion contract that California-based SpaceX signed with NASA. Its next launch is currently scheduled for January, agency officials have said.
Dragon is unique in its ability to ferry hardware, supplies and scientific experiments both to and from the space station. All other cargo craft currently operating ? including Russia's Progress ships ? carry supplies to the orbiting lab but burn up upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
Shortly after welcoming Progress 49 to the station, crewmembers will turn their attention to another task. NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, commander of the orbiting complex's current Expedition 33 mission, and Japanese colleague Akihiko Hoshide will perform a spacewalk Thursday morning (Nov. 1).
Beginning at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1215 GMT) Thursday, Williams and Hoshide will venture to the port side of the station's backbone-like truss to repair an ammonia leak in a radiator. The spacewalk should take about 6 1/2 hours, NASA officials said.
Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and?Google+.
Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-cargo-ship-launches-halloween-mission-space-station-075812049.html
academy awards independent spirit awards 2012 jan brewer independent spirit awards 2012 oscar predictions jim jones tony stewart
You?re a small business and you?ve got a decent website?but you?re not sure how it?s doing. What you need is Google Analytics (GA), but you?re not sure what to make of all the reporting options.
You need to know which page on your site is driving the most traffic and/or conversions. Using the ?All Pages? report, you can see this information as well as helpful data regarding pageviews, time on page, and bounce rate. This data can be used to evaluate your landing pages as well as determine potential areas for new content.
We also have a tally for Goal Conversion Rate and a pie chart for Visits by Location. These are both customizable for your needs. Simply click the gear in the top right of these widgets and set them to the data you want to track. For now, Goal Conversion Rate is tracking all goals (you might just want one specific goal tracked) and Visits by Location is set to City (instead of Region if you?re in multiple states). Set these up however you?d like in order to get the most of the Small Business Dashboard.
Sprint, newly acquired by Japanese SoftBank for $20.1 billion earlier this month, has just announced earnings results for the third quarter, perhaps showing just how fortunate this acquisition will be for the company. For the period ending September 30, the company reported negative EPS of $.26 on revenues of $7.3 billion, an increase of nearly 6 percent year-over-year. That’s down from revenues of $8.8 billion in Q2 2012. The company also reported an operating loss of $231 million. Sprint missed Wall Street expectations, as analysts estimated that Sprint would lose $.44 per share with revenues of $8.8 billion. As always the iPhone plays a central role in Sprint’s story, and this quarter the company says it’s activated 1.5 million iPhones. That’s flat from?1.5 million last quarter, and 40 percent of that represents new customers. Post-paid subscriber base grew with net additions of 410,000. Verizon and AT&T both just reported their third quarter numbers, with both selling a whopping 3.1 million and 4.7 million respectively. Obviously, Sprint can’t quite match these numbers just yet but the increase in post-paid subscribers compared to the same quarter last year is true evidence that the plan is working. An infusion from Japanese SoftBank would go a long ways, considering both companies have so much in common (the iPhone, LTE frequencies, a bronze medal or two). Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) today reported wireless service revenues of nearly $7.3 billion during the quarter, an increase of nearly 6 percent year-over-year. Wireless service revenues for the Sprint platform grew 14 percent year-over-year driven by postpaid ARPU growth of $3.01 and continued subscriber growth. The company reported a net loss of $767 million and a diluted net loss of $.26 per share for the third quarter of 2012 as compared to a net loss of $301 million and a diluted net loss of $.10 per share in the third quarter of 2011. Sprint?s third quarter 2012 results include accelerated depreciation of $397 million, or negative $.13 per share (pre-tax), primarily related to Network Vision, including the expected shutdown of the Nextel platform. The Sprint platform postpaid subscriber base grew for the tenth consecutive quarter, with net additions of 410,000 driven by a postpaid Nextel recapture rate of 59 percent and best ever third quarter churn. Sprint recorded approximately 1.5 million iPhone? sales in the third quarter with 40 percent representing new customers. The company also surpassed 1
Posted by Rob on October 26, 2012