Weekly Links
Down to Earth
Microsoft co-founder and commercial spaceflight pioneer Paul Allen died last week.
Rocket Lab has decided it will operate a launch site from Wallops Island, Virginia.
In Orbit
There have been 9 successful orbital launches since my last post on October 14th:
- October 15 – A Chinese Long March 3B rocket launched two Beidou navigation satellites.
- October 17 – A ULA Atlas V rocket launched a USAF communications satellite.
- October 20 – An ESA Ariane V rocket placed BepiColombo in solar orbit on its way to study Mercury.
- October 24 – A Chinese Long March 4B rocket placed an Earth-observing satellite in orbit.
- October 25 – A Russian Soyuz-2.1b rocket launched a military satellite.
- October 29 – A Chinese Long March 2C rocket launched an Earth-observing satellite.
- October 29 – A Japanese H-IIA rocket launched carrying a satellite for the UAE.
- November 1 – A Chinese Long March 3B rocket put a new Beidou navigation satellite in orbit.
- November 3 – A Russian Soyuz-2.1b rocket launch a GLONASS navigation satellite.
A private Chinese rocket startup, LandSpace, failed to put a satellite in orbit on the first launch of their ZhuQue-1 rocket.
Roscosmos completed the accident investigation of the Soyuz abort last month and released the below onboard camera footage. The first crewed return to flight since the accident is expected in December.
Пуск ракеты-носителя «Союз-ФГ» с пилотируемым кораблем #СоюзМС10. Видео с бортовых камер pic.twitter.com/ijPnwbbS4i
— РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) November 1, 2018
Both the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have been recovered from safe mode.
In other space telescope news, NASA announced that Kepler will cease operations.
NASA released photographs from the Soyuz flyaround following the most recent crew undocking in October. This was the first detailed flyaround and photographic survey of the ISS since the end of the Shuttle program.
ISS on October 4th, 2018
Around the Solar System
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has run out of fuel and ceased communications.
Check out this amazing GIF of asteroid Bennu from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft. This is an early look at an unexplored world.
Holy rotating Bennu, Batman! I used PolyCam to capture this set of images over a span of five hours on Oct. 23. The images show three views of asteroid Bennu as it rotates 1,800 miles (3,000 km) in the distance. More details: https://t.co/lNqY8Ibire pic.twitter.com/Oaatp1xDXT
— NASA's OSIRIS-REx (@OSIRISREx) October 25, 2018
And here’s a cool video from Hayabusa-2 of a touchdown rehearsal on asteroid Ryugu.