Weekly Links
Down To Earth
This week NASA finally announced the winners of the next Commercial Resupply Services contract, or CRS-2. This is the contract currently held by SpaceX and Orbital ATK to delivery cargo to the ISS. The contract was rebid for flights starting in the 2019 timeframe. NASA made the exciting decision to give the contract to all three remaining companies: SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and Sierra Nevada.
This was a good week for SpaceX, beyond just the cargo award. To get people excited, they released this video recap of their successful launch and landing last month:
Then they performed a “static fire” test of the recovered booster. The results were reportedly good with some anomalies.
Maybe some debris ingestion. Engine data looks ok. Will borescope tonight. This is one of the outer engines.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2016
And thirdly, SpaceX launched the Jason-3 satellite for NOAA on Sunday from their California launch site. The satellite reached orbit successfully, but the first stage recovery attempt – which was on a barge instead of a landing pad in this case – was close but unsuccessful. Here’s some information from NASA about the Jason-3 mission if you are interested. If you want even more, AmericaSpace has an interview with the Project Scientist.
Well, at least the pieces were bigger this time! Won't be last RUD, but am optimistic about upcoming ship landing. pic.twitter.com/w007TccANJ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2016
And here’s some awesome video of the touchdown (I’ll add it as an embedded Vine below whenever it is posted there).
In Orbit
China also had a successful orbital launch today with a telecommunications satellite for Belarus. The SpaceX and Chinese launches are the first two flights of the new year.
Meanwhile, on the space station, the “Tims,” astronauts Tim Kopra and Tim Peake, went out for a spacewalk on Friday to repair one of the ISS power channels that malfunctions last November (while I was on shift, in fact). The EVA was successful in its main objective but had to be terminated early due to unexpected water accumulating in Tim Kopra’s helmet.
Around the Solar System
The European Space Agency attempted to contact the Philae lander, on comet 67P-C/G, but it is still nonresponsive. As the comet gets farther from the sun in its orbit and the light levels decrease, the chance of the little probe waking up are quickly diminishing.
Things are getting critical for @Philae2014… Status report via DLR: https://t.co/u83nZDd87R pic.twitter.com/W7chpQGBXQ
— ESA Rosetta Mission (@ESA_Rosetta) January 8, 2016
The JUNO spacecraft, on its way to Jupiter, has broken the “distance record” for a solar powered spacecraft, according to Spaceflight Insider.