SpaceX completed a successful static fire today, full 3.5 secs.  Official statement below, video/photos to come as available. Today, SpaceX successfully completed a test firing of the inaugural Falcon 9 launch vehicle at Space Launch Complex 40 located at Cape Canaveral.  Following a nominal terminal countdown, the launch sequencer commanded ignition of all 9 Merlin first stage engines for a period of 3.5 seconds.  Just prior to engine ignition, the pad water deluge system was activated providing acoustic suppression to keep vibration levels within acceptable limits.  The test validated the launch pad propellant and pneumatic systems as well as the ground and flight control software that controls pad and launch vehicle configurations.  The completion of a successful static fire is the latest milestone on the path to first flight of the Falcon 9 which will carry a Dragon spacecraft qualification unit to orbit.

University Valley with the snowpack at the head of the valley. Note the little bits of remaining snow: the amount of snow on the ground is greatest near the snowpack and decreases towards the mouth of the valley. Credit: M. Marinova

NASA's IceBite project will spend three austral summers in Antarctica testing ice-penetrating drills for a future mission to Mars.

This is an animation flying over southwest Candor Chasma on Mars. It was created from NASA's HiRISE DTM and image data. The spatial resolution is 1 meter for the altimetry data and 0.25 meters for the image data. There is no vertical exageration. The animation was created using Mars Explorer and was captured in realtime. Data credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. Video by Adrian Lark, Mars3D.com

This image, acquired by Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument on 9 March 2010, captures sea ice in the Sea of Okhotsk off the northeastern coast of Russia's Sakhalin Island (top left) and the northern tip of Japan's Hokkaido Island (bottom left). Sea ice began forming in the northern area over the Sea of Okhotsk in November 2009. Since then, it extended down to about 30 km off the northern coast of Hokkaido and has likely reached its maximum. Credits: ESA. Download: HI-RES JPEG (Size: 1541 kb) HI-RES TIFF (Size: 27 954 kb)

Astronaut and Everest climber Scott Parazynski recently posted some new images of the Everest summit rock and Apollo Moon rocks that were installed inside the cupola attached to the ISS node Tranquility last month. You can see more of them here.

Astro_Soichi: Small Fine Arm (Ko-Bot) unveiled. This is not CG. Real robot arm in real space!

Space Florida is pleased to announce that it has secured Real Property Licenses for Space Launch Complexes 46 and 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. As a result, the 45th Space Wing now grants Space Florida full rights to proceed with construction and refurbishment work at either launch location.