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This is 10 years in the making... Landing on a Comet, 317 Million Miles From the Earth 10 years ago on March 2nd 2004, European Space Agency ESA designed & launched the space craft called Philae.. Philae's design & missions sole purpose was to travel to the far edge of the space and meet with Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko , the shuttle has a small lander that will make contact with the asteroid in a soft landing manner , Not like the impact mission carried out like previous space mission After being launched nearly 10 years ago, the ESA's Rosetta mission is about to reach a major milestone Philae is a 100 kg (220 lb) robotic probe that will set down on the surface with landing gear and it will basically "harpoon itself to the surface" when it lands it will send back images first hand then it'll drill down into the comet (although this one is not directed by Micheal bay) Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko Early Wednesday morning the Rosetta spacecraft’s Philae lander will attempt to land on Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko NASA Television and the agency’s website will provide live coverage from 9-11:30 a.m. EST (6-8:30 a.m. PST) of the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission’s scheduled landing of a probe on a comet on Wednesday, Nov. 12. NASA's live commentary will include excerpts of the ESA coverage and air from 9-10 a.m. NASA will continue carrying ESA's commentary from 10-11:30 a.m. ESA’s Philae (fee-LAY) real image: taken on September image courtesy WIKI! Philae is scheduled to detach from Rosetta on 12 November 2014 at 08:35 UTC, with a landing seven hours later After landing, Philae will obtain the first images ever taken from a comet's surface. It also will drill into the surface to study the composition and witness close up how a comet changes as its exposure to the sun varies. Philae can remain active on the surface for approximately two-and-a-half days. Its “mothership” is the Rosetta spacecraft that will remain in orbit around the comet through 2015. The orbiter will continue detailed studies of the comet as it approaches the sun and then moves away. NASA has three of the 16 instruments aboard the orbiter. The ESA expects the landing to take place at around 11:02AM ET tomorrow Technically it's not Live since there is the delay about 40 minutes between signal since it's so fuc*ing distant from earth! Watch the event live here:(verified original link) http://www.esa.int/rosetta News source with links: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/november/nasa-television-to-provide-coverage-of-european-mission-comet-landing/ Organized Landing Timeline: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/07/rosetta-and-philae-landing-timeline/ Bonus: if you guys want this on the news section PM a Mod , it's technically not "tech" but science bitch! Leave a comment or troll down below...

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Has Crashed, One Pilot Confirmed Dead Virgin Galactic is reporting that there has been an "in-flight anomaly" aboard SpaceShipTwo. There were unconfirmed reports that one of the two pilots is dead. Those reports have now been confirmed. The suborbital flight took off at 9:19am PDT from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in California. Update: Virgin Galactic has confirmed that SpaceshipTwo has crashed and the California Highway Patrol has confirmed that there is one fatality and one major injury. The flight marked the first use of a new type of fuel to power the ship's engine. As Aviation Week reports, Virgin Galactic, along with their partner Scaled Composites were testing a new hybrid type rocket motor with the new fuel: The flight was testing the performance of the new polyamide-based grain that was adopted in place of the hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, a form of rubber that was used for the first series of powered tests. Scaled and Virgin, which announced the decision to change to the new fuel in May, made the switch in hopes of providing a longer, more energetic burn with lower thrust oscillations. Reports are coming in from people on the ground talking about the debris sites: Virgin Galactic has issued a statement confirming the loss of the vehicle, but say that the status of the pilots is still unknown. Update: The California Highway Patrol has confirmed that there is one fatality and one major injury. This is obviously a major setback for Virgin Galactic and its partners, who have been promising to put space tourists on regular flights for over a decade now. And things don't look good, according to the people who have been covering Virgin Galactic. Today's crash was in the Mojave Desert in California, but the facility where space tourism flights were supposed to take off in the next couple of years is Spaceport America in New Mexico. The facility has gotten heat for being heavily subsidized by the state, but the advertised trade off has always been that the facility would provide an influx of jobs and money into the state. Today's crash leaves that in doubt. Video from CNN with Joël Glenn Brenner, a former reporter for the Washington Post who covers Virgin Galactic and is friends with the pilots: "The enthusiasm that has been shown outwardly by Virgin Galactic and by Sir Richard certainly does not match at all with the technology behind the scenes," Brenner, who is currently working on a book about Virgin Galactic, told CNN. "There's a big gap there and has been for quite some time." Richard Branson is reportedly en route to the Mojave Spaceport, according to CNN. "This engine that exploded today, even if they had had a successful flight, and even if they had not stolen my friend's life, okay," Brenner said choking up on CNN. "...they would not have ever gotten anywhere near space with this engine, okay?" "So I am here to say that they took this pilot's life and this engine still would not have gotten customers to space. And I want people to know that now and I am sure that Virgin Galactic is going to be very unhappy with me," Brenner said. "We're telling the truth. But it is time the truth be told. Because that is the truth." "They do not have any vehicle anywhere near completion," Joël Glenn Brenner has told CNN, noting that they don't have another aircraft waiting in the wings. "This really marks the end for what they can do." The new engine reportedly blew up within the first six seconds of ignition. Both pilots were civilian pilots, meaning that they did not go through military flight training. As Motherboard notes, three employees of Virgin Galactic's partner, Scaled Composites, were killed during an accident back in 2007. That accident also took place at the Mojave Air and Spaceport and happened when they were testing a rocket system for the SpaceShipTwo. NBC has a livestream of the press conference about the crash of SpaceShipTwo, which starts at 2pm Pacific time, 5pm Eastern: http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/live-video/watch-live-officials-discuss-virgin-galactic-s-spaceshiptwo-crash-322485827772 The crash occurred approximately 25 miles north of the airport, according to Stu Witt, the director of the Mojave Air and Spaceport. Everyone at the press conference has confirmed that there was one fatality and one serious injury as a result of the "mishap." The National Transportation and Safety Board will arrive and begin their investigation into the crash tomorrow morning. "Space is hard, and today was a tough day," the CEO of Virgin Galactic, George T. Whitesides said. He noted that Richard Branson will be on site by tomorrow morning as well. "We are going to be supporting the investigation as we figure out what happened today, and we're going to get through it," Whitesides said. "The future rests in many ways on hard days like this, but we believe we owe it to the folks who were flying these vehicles as well as the folks that were working so hard on them to understand this, and to move forward." The director of the air and spaceport said that from his vantage point he couldn't see any explosion, as some reports in the media had claimed. "This was a pure test, not a public event. I detected nothing that appeared abnormal," Stu Witt said. "I couldn't detect anything. There was a pause of about 90 seconds [...] It was what I was not hearing and not seeing. If there was a huge explosion I didn't hear it, I didn't see it." The two test pilots have not yet been identified but it was confirmed that they were both employees of Space Composites, not Virgin Galactic. "We're doing this for you and for your generation," Stu Witt said referring to the future of space travel. "Stay the course. This business is a worthy, good business. This business is not easy. If it was easy, it wouldn't be interesting." Oringal post form gizmodo.com : http://gizmodo.com/virgin-galactic-experiences-first-major-accident-possi-1653360863?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Hey, fam. I'm creating this poll to help the op' team figure out some of the angles we will be using for operation planning. If you take the time to look at the poll shown above, you'll see what I'm talking about. I want to get a feel for how often you'll be playing as well as what gameplay aspects you'll be mostly engaged in, and not just what you plan on doing in the game. By taking this census you'll be helping us create better operations which will cater to every player type in the fleet. Specially because when we create the operations we really push for them to be as entertaining as possible, but we always feel we may be leaving some fleet-mates out. And keep in mind, we're creating operations but we are not group leaders or fleet leaders. We're regular members just like you.... Unless you're not a regular member. Well, in that case this doesn't apply to you at all so stay away from my poll. *DRUM ROL- This is just a case where the community is driving the fleet forward. High Council does whatever they can to help us all stay organized, but what we do and how we all have fun together is really up to us. It's one of the great features of joining a community like this, having a public forum for us to be creative, work together and in the end take over the Star Citizen universe. Another thing to note is that this poll will also help everyone have a better understanding as to what sort of experiences we may share with each other. Everyone has been so positive and working so well together, but there are certain things where only a fraction of the fleet will be collaborating on. Let's fix that. Since this is all for the fun of it, the team and I want to try to do whatever we can to help bring us all together as often as possible. So, yeah. Please, if you have time, just take the poll over the next week or so. Help us do the best we can for the fleet, please. Current operation status: Operation Monarch (On Hold) Operation Ocelot (Active) Operation Citadel (Inactive) Operation Dragon (Active) Operation Royal Salute (Finished) And two additional operations which will not be released to the public without strict consent from the High Council. --- Should you wish to answer via post along side of your poll vote, please use the following example as a guide and format: @b45op What type of player are you? (Please base this more on time investment) Weekend Warrior with some enthusiast playing based on schedule, if its planned in advance I can possibly accommodate it. What sort of gameplay is the most appealing for you? PVE and Solo flight, this fits my main play style of the happy go lucky hippie dude in the banged out freelancer, However I am available for PVP should the requirement arise hence the 325a in my hanger. I might know which way the guns point. What operation type do you find the most appealing? Due to schedule again I have opted for small scale, short time table, Group gain and Self gain (a dude has to make a living) --- Anyways, fam. Thanks again and we'll be talking to you later.