NASA's Spitzer Detects Comet Storm in Nearby Solar System 0

This artist's conception illustrates a storm of comets around a star near our own, called Eta Corvi. Evidence for this barrage comes from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, whose infrared detectors picked up indications that one or more comets was recently torn to shreds after colliding with a rocky body. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected signs of icy bodies raining down in an alien solar system. The downpour resembles our own solar system several billion years ago during a period known as the "Late Heavy Bombardment," which may have brought water and other life-forming ingredients to Earth.
During this epoch, comets and other frosty objects that were flung from the outer solar system pummeled the inner planets. The barrage scarred our moon and produced large amounts of dust.
Now Spitzer has spotted a band of dust around a nearby bright star in the northern sky called Eta Corvi that strongly matches the contents of an obliterated giant comet. This dust is located close enough to Eta Corvi that Earth-like worlds could exist, suggesting a collision took place between a planet and one or more comets. The Eta Corvi system is approximately one billion years old, which researchers think is about the right age for such a hailstorm.
"We believe we have direct evidence for an ongoing Late Heavy Bombardment in the nearby star system Eta Corvi, occurring about the same time as in our solar system," said Carey Lisse, senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and lead author of a paper detailing the findings. The findings will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. Lisse presented the results at the Signposts of Planets meeting at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on Oct. 19.
Astronomers used Spitzer's infrared detectors to analyze the light coming from the dust around Eta Corvi. Certain chemical fingerprints were observed, including water ice, organics and rock, which indicate a giant comet source.
The light signature emitted by the dust around Eta Corvi also resembles the Almahata Sitta meteorite, which fell to Earth in fragments across Sudan in 2008. The similarities between the meteorite and the object obliterated in Eta Corvi imply a common birthplace in their respective solar systems.
A second, more massive ring of colder dust located at the far edge of the Eta Corvi system seems like the proper environment for a reservoir of cometary bodies. This bright ring, discovered in 2005, looms at about 150 times the distance from Eta Corvi as Earth is from the sun. Our solar system has a similar region, known as the Kuiper Belt, where icy and rocky leftovers from planet formation linger. The new Spitzer data suggest that the Almahata Sitta meteorite may have originated in our own Kuiper Belt.
The Kuiper Belt was home to a vastly greater number of these frozen bodies, collectively dubbed Kuiper Belt objects. About 4 billion years ago, some 600 million years after our solar system formed, scientists think the Kuiper Belt was disturbed by a migration of the gas-giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. This jarring shift in the solar system's gravitational balance scattered the icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt, flinging the vast majority into interstellar space and producing cold dust in the belt. Some Kuiper Belt objects, however, were set on paths that crossed the orbits of the inner planets.
The resulting bombardment of comets lasted until 3.8 billion years ago. After comets impacted the side of the moon that faces Earth, magma seeped out of the lunar crust, eventually cooling into dark "seas," or maria. When viewed against the lighter surrounding areas of the lunar surface, those seas form the distinctive "Man in the Moon" visage. Comets also struck Earth or incinerated in the atmosphere, and are thought to have deposited water and carbon on our planet. This period of impacts might have helped life form by delivering its crucial ingredients.
"We think the Eta Corvi system should be studied in detail to learn more about the rain of impacting comets and other objects that may have started life on our own planet," Lisse said.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
(NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Nearby Planet-Forming Disk Holds Water for Thousands of Oceans 0

For the first time, astronomers have detected around a burgeoning solar system a sprawling cloud of water vapor that's cold enough to form comets, which could eventually deliver oceans to dry planets.

An illustration depicting the sprawling cloud of cold water vapor that astronomers have detected around the burgeoning solar system at the nearby star TW Hydrae. The cold water vapor could could eventually deliver oceans to dry planets that are forming in the system. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC/Caltech)

Water is an essential ingredient for life. Scientists have found thousands of Earth-oceans' worth of it within the planet-forming disk surrounding the star TW Hydrae. TW Hydrae is 176 light years away in the constellation Hydra and is the closest solar-system-to-be.
University of Michigan astronomy professor Ted Bergin is a co-author of a paper on the findings published in the Oct. 21 edition of Science.
The researchers used the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) on the orbiting Hershel Space Observatory to detect the chemical signature of water.
"This tells us that the key materials that life needs are present in a system before planets are born," said Bergin, a HIFI co-investigator. "We expected this to be the case, but now we know it is because have directly detected it. We can see it."
Scientists had previously found warm water vapor in planet-forming disks close to the central star. But until now, evidence for vast quantities of water extending into the cooler, far reaches of disks where comets and giant planets take shape had not emerged. The more water available in disks for icy comets to form, the greater the chances that large amounts will eventually reach new planets through impacts.
"The detection of water sticking to dust grains throughout the planet-forming disk would be similar to events in our own solar system's evolution, where over millions of years, these dust grains would then coalesce to form comets. These would be a prime delivery mechanism for water on planetary bodies," said principal investigator Michiel Hogerheijde of Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Other recent findings from HIFI support the theory that comets delivered a significant portion of Earth's oceans. Researchers found that the ice on a comet called Hartley 2 has the same chemical composition as our oceans.
HIFI is helping astronomers gain a better understanding of how water comes to terrestrial planets -- Earth and beyond. If TW Hydrae and its icy disk are representative of many other young star systems, as researchers think they are, then the process for creating planets around numerous stars with abundant water throughout the universe appears to be in place, NASA officials say.

University of Michigan.

Does China Want To Own The Moon? 0

Although treaties forbid ownership, the powerful nation would have little resistance when laying claim to lunar resources.

The only flags planted into the lunar regolith by humans was done by U.S. astronauts from the Apollo Program. Will China be next? Click to enlarge this image.
NASA (edit by Discovery News/Ian O'Neill)
By the time U.S. astronauts return to the moon they may need permission to touch down -- from China, which is laying the groundwork for a lunar land grab, says long-time space advocate and entrepreneur Robert Bigelow.
Owning the moon is the first step in a game Bigelow, founder of Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace, calls "Solar System Monopoly."
"This will characterize the 21st and 22nd centuries and beyond. If we ignore this, it will be at our extreme peril," Bigelow said at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight under way this week in Las Cruces, N.M.
The way Bigelow sees it, China, which has no debt, cash reserves of $3 trillion, technical skills, a long-term strategy and strong national support, will lay claim to raw materials on the moon in about 15 years.
The land grab will occur despite an international treaty barring ownership of extraterrestrial bodies, concludes Bigelow, who points out that China's growing global economic influence will make it less likely other countries will object to its lunar expansion.
"This isn't going to start World War III," Bigelow said.
There's several reasons why China might want the moon, not the least of which is its trove of mineral resources that include water and helium-3, a potential fuel for fusion energy reactors. Laying claim to the moon also would have a powerful psychological impact, displacing America's Apollo forays and catapulting China's international status in one fell swoop.
"Nothing else China could possibly do in the next 15 years would cause as great a benefit for China," Bigelow said.
With the United States straddled by debt and political gridlock, Bigelow thinks the first round of the game is already lost. But there's still time to give China a run for its money on Mars.
"Hopefully this will produce the fear factor necessary to motivate Americans," Bigelow said.
China, which is not a member of the International Space Station program, last month launched a test module for its own outpost in orbit. A capsule to robotically dock at the module is scheduled to be launched in November. That will be followed by human missions in 2012.
In addition to a small space station, China has announced plans for a lunar base by 2020.
"They're serious about what they're doing," said Mark Sirangelo, who oversees Sierra Nevada Corp., one of several firms working to develop commercial passenger spaceships for NASA and other users.
"Not only do they have a lot of people and a lot of money focused in on it, but they have a lot of willpower. I think that's one of the things that we in this country are lacking a little bit right now, the willpower to do the necessary things to make us successful in space."

SCIENCE CHANNEL: Lunar Geography Game

EU Launches Its First Satellite Navigation System 0

In this photo provided by the European Space Agency (ESA), Russia's Soyuz VS01 rocket sits on its launching pad, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, in the space base of Kourou, French Guiana . The Russian Federal Space Agency and Arianespace, the commercial arm of the 13-country European Space Agency, will launch tomorrow, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011, the Soyuz rocket from the European spaceport in South America, carrying two Galileo navigation satellites in its maiden flight. (AP Photo/ESA, S. Corvaja)

BRUSSELS — A Russian rocket launched the first two satellites of the European Union's Galileo navigation system Friday after years of delay in an ambitious bid to rival the ubiquitous American GPS network.
The launch of the Soyuz from French Guiana, on the northern coast of South America, marks the maiden voyage of the Russian rocket outside the former Soviet Union, with European and Russian authorities cheering at liftoff in relief after the launch was pushed back by a day.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said it is the first time that two teams work together on the launch of the Soyuz.
"We have been able to combine the best spacial activity aspects of both governments, that of France and that of Russia," he said. "I am convinced that will yield us good results."
The Galileo system has become for some a symbol of EU infighting, inefficiency and delay. Now, officials are hoping it will kick off a trans-Atlantic competition with the American GPS network.
Antonio Tajani, the EU's industry and enterprise commissioner, even linked it to Sunday's crucial summit of EU leaders struggling to put their financial house in order. "Europe shows that she is capable of managing a big project just days from the European economic summit," he said.
The rocket is expected to place into orbit the Galileo IOV-1 PFM and FM2 satellites during a nearly four-hour mission. The two satellites will be released in opposite directions.
The mission was delayed for 24 hours because of a leaky valve, and there was much relief at EU headquarters Friday that the project finally was off into space. The first part of the launch was successful, with the rocket expected to travel over Asia, Indonesia and the Indian Ocean, said Jean-Yves Le Gall, chairman and CEO of Arianespace, the commercial arm of the European Space Agency.
GPS has become the global consumer standard in satellite navigation over the past decade, reducing the need for awkward oversized maps and arguments with back seat drivers about whether to turn left or right.
Laurent Wauquiez, France's higher education minister and former deputy minister for European affairs, said Europe should not depend on a U.S. military-based GPS system that could be shut down at any time for security reasons.
"It means overnight we could lose our autonomy," he said. "There is an issue of sovereignty. We must not neglect this aspect even in a period of globalization."
The EU wants Galileo to dominate the future with a system that is more precise and more reliable than GPS, while controlled by civil authorities. It foresees applications ranging from precision seeding on farmland to pinpoint positioning for search-and-rescue missions. On top of that, the EU hopes it will reap a financial windfall.
"If Europe wants to be competitive and independent in the future, the EU needs to have its own satellite navigation system to also create new economic opportunities", said Herbert Reul, head of the EU parliament's industry, research and energy committee.
There are still several more years to wait, but the satellite launch is a major step in getting Galileo on track. It will start operating in 2014 as a free consumer navigation service, with more specialized services to be rolled out until 2020, when it should be fully operational.
After the initial launch, two satellites will go up every quarter as of the end of 2012 until all 30 satellites are up.
The EU hopes its economic impact will stand at about euro90 billion ($125 billion) in industrial revenues and public benefits over the next two decades.
The idea for the program first rallied support in the late 1990s, and its development has been pushed back with delays ever since. When it became clear in 2008 that private investors weren't lining up to finance Galileo, the EU decided taxpayers would underwrite most of the program.
The European Commission said development and deployment since 2003 is estimated at well over euro5 billion ($6.8 billion). Maintaining and completing the system is expected to cost euro1 billion ($1.35 billion) a year.
Critics have said the cost overruns were much higher.
"Far from celebrating," officials "who have supported Galileo should be making a public apology to taxpayers for this shocking waste of time, effort and resources," EU legislator Marta Andreasen of the anti-Euro UKIP party said.

The Orionids Are Peaking! 0

The dusty debris from the tail of Halley's Comet will rain down on the Earth's atmosphere, producing around 30 meteors per minute.

Although the meteor shower peak is predicted to occur when Europe is in darkness, the display should continue through the weekend. CORBIS
A few weeks ago, Discovery Space readers from Europe witnessed the peak of the Draconids meteor shower that produced around 300 meteors per hour. On Friday evening at around 21:00 GMT, another meteor shower peaks: the Orionids.
The meteors from this shower represent debris from the famous Halley's Comet that orbits the Earth every 76 years.
Comets are lumps of rock and ice orbiting the sun. As they get closer, the heat from the sun causes the ice to turn straight into vapor -- a process called "sublimation" -- which leads to the formation of a coma surrounding the rocky nucleus.
As the comet heads even closer to the sun, a stream of electrically charged particles from the solar wind pushes against the coma, stretching it out into the comet's trademark tail.
In some of the more spectacular comets such as Hale Bopp, it's possible to see two tails, one made from gas and another at a slight angle made from dust. When you see this, it's easy to understand why we get meteor showers.
As the comet travels around the sun it sheds debris along its path. If the Earth passes close by or even through the debris' orbit we will see a meteor shower as the tiny particles slam into our atmosphere.
Some meteors can be incredibly bright, but most of them -- which are the size of grains of sand -- burn up high in our atmosphere. If they do survive the fiery plunge (traveling over 60km per second) then they are classed as meteorites. It's unlikely that any meteorites will 'fall' during the Orionid shower this evening but there will be plenty to see high in the sky. The dusty debris from the tail of Halley's Comet will rain down on the Earth's atmosphere, producing around 30 meteors per minute.
It's a popular misconception that meteors glow due to friction with the atmosphere, but in fact it's the 'ram pressure' causing the air in front of the falling meteor to get compressed. It heats to around 3,000 degrees causing the air ahead of the falling meteor to glow.
This year's Orionid display won't be anywhere near as impressive as the Draconids but at an estimated 30 meteors per hour it could still be worth checking out.
Unfortunately, the moon's phase is one day passed last quarter so its light will render many of the fainter meteors invisible. The best tip is to wrap up warm, get outside around 21:00 GMT (if you're in Europe), or any time during the night over the weekend before moonrise from your location. If it's dark, and the skies are clear, look up.
The great thing about looking for meteors is that no equipment is necessary other than warm clothing and perhaps a comfortable chair.

Asteroid Has Mountain 3 Times Bigger Than Everest 0

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI

A giant mountain, three times taller than Earth's highest peak, graces the southern polar region of Vesta, an asteroid that's the target of a close-up study by NASA's Dawn science probe. The mountain is pictured in the center of this image.
Dawn went into orbit around Vesta, a large asteroid in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, in July. Scientists plan to discuss more details about the mission on Wednesday as part of the Geological Society of America's annual meeting.
Dawn's reconnaissance of Vesta is scheduled to end in July 2012. The probe next heads to the king of theAsteroid Belt, Ceres, a dwarf planet.

Youngest Baby Exoplanet " Discovered 0

The circumstellar disk surrounding the star LkCa 15 (left). Zoomed in, with the light from the star canceled out, the location of the protoplanet can be seen -- the red and blue "blob" (right). Credit: Kraus & Ireland 2011

We know that the planets in our solar system were born from a dusty disk surrounding the sun billions of years ago; wouldn't it be amazing if we could see another star system going through the birthing throes of this protoplanetary phase?
Today, a team of astronomers using the awesome power of the twin 10-meter Keck Telescopes atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, have announced just that.
For the first time they have directly imaged a baby world forming close to its parent star inside an empty track of a larger disk of dust. This makes it a record-breaker -- the proto(exo?)planet is five-times younger than the youngest exoplanet discovered to date.
The baby world -- called LkCa 15 b -- orbits LkCa 15, a T Tauri star located 450 light-years from Earth that is already known to possess a dusty circumstellar disk.
T Tauri stars are very luminous, young, variable stars. In astronomical timescales, they've recently formed from a cloud of gas under gravitational collapse. The gravitational energy released is what provides the energy to power the star, a phase before nuclear fusion is ignited in their cores.
So, when we observe LkCa 15, we know we are looking at a star that's just starting out, potentially with a whole system of worlds that might form from its protoplanetary disk.
And now we know that there will be at least one world, LkCa 15 b, that Keck can see slowly forming.
"LkCa 15 b is the youngest planet ever found, about 5 times younger than the previous record holder," said astronomer Adam Kraus of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. "This young gas giant is being built out of the dust and gas. In the past, you couldn't measure this kind of phenomenon because it's happening so close to the star. But, for the first time, we've been able to directly measure the planet itself as well as the dusty matter around it."
Using a clever trick, Kraus and co-investigator Michael Ireland, of Macquarie University and the Australian Astronomical Observatory, were able to tease out the light being emitted by the dust surrounding the newborn star. They combined the power of Keck's Adaptive Optics with a technique called aperture mask interferometry to manipulate the starlight after it is received by the telescope.
"It's like we have an array of small mirrors," said Kraus. "We can manipulate the light and cancel out distortions." By doing this, the bright light emitted by the star can be canceled out, resolving the faint disks and gaps therein where baby worlds may be hiding. In one of those gaps, LkCa 15 b resides.
The study has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
"We realized we had uncovered a super Jupiter-sized gas planet, but that we could also measure the dust and gas surrounding it. We’d found a planet, perhaps even a future solar system at its very beginning," he adds.
Kraus and Ireland intend to continue surveying other nearby stars to see if similar worlds are forming in the ultimate hope of understanding the planetary formation processes that built our own solar system.

Scientists Discover Ozone Layer On Venus 0

A European spacecraft has discovered an ozone layer high in the sweltering atmosphere of Venus, a new study reveals.

Starting its scientific surveying in July 2006, the European Space Agency's(ESA) Venus Express has been carrying out the most detailed study of the planet's thick and complex atmosphere to date. CREDIT: ESA

The discovery will help astronomers better understand the composition of Venus' murky atmosphere, and by comparing it to the atmospheres of Earth and Mars, the findings could even help shape the search for life on other planets, the researchers said.
The European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft detected ozone, which is a molecule containing three oxygen atoms, while gazing at stars that can be seen at the very edge of the planet through its atmosphere.
"This detection gives us an important constraint on understanding the chemistry of Venus's atmosphere," study leader Franck Montmessin, of the Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS) in France, said in a statement.
Venus Atmosphere

Artist’s impression of the detection of ozone on Venus’ night side. CREDIT: ESA/AOES Medialab

Ozone layer on Venus
The probe's Spectroscopy for Investigation of Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Venus (SPICAV) scrutinized the starlight for key characteristics of gases in the atmosphere as it is absorbed at different wavelengths. The Venus Express SPICAV instrument discovered the ozone because it absorbed some of the ultraviolet light from the stars, the researchers said.
The findings were presented Oct. 6 at the joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Nantes, France.
Computer models show that the ozone on Venus forms when sunlight breaks up carbon dioxide molecules, which releases oxygen atoms. Winds in the atmosphere of Venus sweep these atoms around to the night side of the planet, where they can combine to form two-atom oxygen molecules, as well as three-atom ozone molecules.
The discovery will help scientists better characterize the chemistry of Venus' atmosphere, but it could also be useful for astronomers searching for life on other worlds, the researchers said.
By comparing the properties of Venus' atmosphere with equivalent layers of the atmospheres of Earth and Mars, scientists could narrow down their search for life on other planets, Montmessin explained.
The research will be detailed in the November issue of the journal Icarus.

Dead German Satellite to reach Earth This Week 0

Artist's impression of the ROSAT satellite in space CREDIT: German Aerospace Center

A defunct German satellite is expected to plunge to Earth this week, but exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery.

The massive German Roentgen Satellite, or ROSAT, is expected to plummet to Earth on Saturday or Sunday (Oct. 22 or 23), though German space officials have also offered a wider re-entry window of between Oct. 21 and Oct. 25. This latest falling satellite comes about a month after a dead NASA climate satellite, called the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), plunged into the Pacific Ocean in late September.
The 2.4-metric ton X-ray space observatory is expected to break up as it travels through Earth's atmosphere, but some large pieces will likely make it through the intense heat of re-entry. According to German aerospace officials, approximately 1.7 metric tons of satellite debris, consisting primarily of up to 30 large glass and ceramic fragments, could survive the journey through the atmosphere and reach the Earth's surface.
"We don't expect big parts to re-enter, except the mirror and the glass and ceramic parts," Jan Woerner, head of the executive board of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Germany's space agency, told SPACE.com. "Usually during re-entry, you have rather clear burning of all the elements, but glass and ceramics may survive and may come down in bigger pieces." [Photos: Germany's ROSAT Satellite Falling to Earth]
There is a 1-in-2.000 chance a piece of ROSAT could strike someone on Earth, DLR officials have said. That's a slightly higher risk than the 1-in-3,200 chance of a debris hit NASA gave for the UARS satellite fall.
German aerospace officials are actively tracking ROSAT, but they will not be able to determine precisely when and where the satellite will fall until roughly two hours before it impacts Earth.
ROSAT's orbit extends from the latitudes of 53 degrees north and south, which essentially covers a huge swath of the planet. This means the satellite could fall anywhere stretching from Canada to South America.
Officials at Germany's space agency calculated a 1-in-2,000 chance that someone on Earth will be hit by ROSAT debris, but the risk of serious injury from such an event remains extremely remote.
Originally, the dead satellite was projected to fall to Earth in November, but refined estimates show that the spacecraft will likely make its fiery descent through the atmosphere later this week — earlier than mission controllers previously thought. [6 Biggest Uncontrolled Spacecraft Falls From Space]
"With satellites like ROSAT, you depend on external circumstances," Woerner said. "For instance, solar wind and changes in the atmosphere may change the time of re-entry. We just have to wait and observe."
ROSAT was launched in June 1990 as a joint venture between Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In 1998, the satellite's star tracker failed, which caused its onboard camera to be directly pointed at the sun. This permanently damaged the spacecraft, and ROSAT was officially decommissioned in February 1999.

This X-ray satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on 1 June 1990 on board a Delta II rocket property of NASA. Originally, the plan was to put Rosat in Earth orbit on board a US Space Shuttle. Following the explosion of Challenger in 1986 (when ROSAT was under construction), it was decided to launch the X-ray satellite into orbit on board a rocket. CREDIT: NASA
Since the satellite does not have a propulsion system, and there is no fuel left onboard, the satellite will make an uncontrolled return to Earth.
"We expect public attention because it's a satellite coming down, but in history, we have had much bigger debris fall," Woerner said.
On Sept. 24, NASA's UARS satellite fell uncontrolled toward Earth and plunged into the Pacific Ocean. The event captured the attention of people around the world, and ROSAT's impending re-entry will mark the second time a large spacecraft makes a publicized fall from space within two months.
Officials at Germany's space agency studied NASA and the U.S. Air Force's response to the falling UARS satellite in order to prepare for ROSAT's final return to Earth.
"For us, it was an advantage that UARS fell before," Woerner said. "We know now a little better how to interpret all the data and use the global network. It was an advantage that the satellite came down before so that now we can look at how to deal with ROSAT and how we deal with this in the future."

Space.com

SpaceX Dragon to be first private spacecraft to dock at ISS 0

When SpaceX's Dragon capsule docks at the International Space Station in November, it will mark the first time that a private spacecraft has visited the facility
lthough we will never see another space shuttle docking at the International Space Station, that doesn't mean that there are no plans for other American spacecraft to be visiting the facility. In fact, one should be up there on or around December 9th. That's when SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to arrive, following a November 30th launch. It's part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, and will be the first time that a privately-developed spacecraft has docked at the ISS.

California-based SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies had originally proposed two separate missions, COTS Demo 2 and Demo 3, to demonstrate to NASA that its craft could successfully transport cargo to and from the ISS. NASA has reportedly agreed in principle to combining the two into one mission, offering up the November 30th launch date.
Besides carrying a cargo capsule to the ISS in the Dragon itself, SpaceX will also be taking the opportunity to deploy equipment from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which will be carrying the Dragon into orbit. Although the Dragon is capable of carrying a human crew, it will be unmanned on this mission.
SpaceX is already known for a test flight that took place last December, which officially made the Dragon the world's first private reusable spacecraft.
Source: Dvice