Weekly Links
Down To Earth
The Smithsonian Institution met their funding goal for their Kickstarter project to raise money to restore both Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 suit and Alan Shepard’s Mercury suit.
Last week, water tanks were “harvested” from the Space Shuttle Endeavour (on display in California), for use on the ISS.
China recently had a successful engine test of the propulsion system for their new Long March 5 rocket.
The pop band One Direction released a music video filmed almost entirely at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The video for Drag Me Down has reached over one million views on YouTube.
While we’re talking about space in popular culture, here is the latest full length trailer for The Martian.
In Orbit
The latest ISS resupply mission successfully launched from Japan on August 19th and is on track for a Monday, August 24th, arrival at the space station. Here is NASA TV’s schedule of live coverage.
The European Space Agency also launched a rocket last week. The Ariane 5 rocket launched from the Kourou launch site on August 20th with two communication satellites.
ISS Commander Scott Kelly got a great shot of tropical cyclone Danny last week that got a lot of media attention.
#HurricaneDanny Keeping an eye on you from @space_station. Looks like you're 1st in Atlantic. Stay safe! #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/8U0ZsEZ482
— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) August 20, 2015
Another amazing picture from the ISS was this picture of lightning which also captured a rare red “sprite” in the upper atmosphere.
Around The Solar System
New analysis from the LADEE spacecraft (which has already been crashed into the moon) confirm the presence of neon in the moon’s tenuous exosphere.
I failed to link to this awesome imagery of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko outgassing just after passing perihelion earlier this month.
Imagery via ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft
The Cassini spacecraft had its last close flyby of Saturn’s small but interesting moon Dione and sent back some of its own awesome imagery.
This awesome Curiosity rover “selfie” from Mars got a lot of press last week. Curiosity recently “celebrated” 3 years on Mars and is still going strong.
If you’re into that sort of thing, you can send your name (and your cat’s) to Mars with the Insight probe, launching next year.