Archive for the ‘Atlas V’ Category
Weekly Links
Down to Earth
The latest SpaceX resupply craft to visit the space station successfully departed and splashed down yesterday morning, returning a large supply of science to NASA scientists.
The picture below is not from the Dragon splashdown but instead an attempt to return a rocket fairing after a Falcon 9 launch earlier this year.
Firefly Aerospace, a young space company out of Austin, has made a deal with the USAF to use a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
United States Vice President Mike Pence visited JPL in California.
Some new issues emerged this week regarding the preparations for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for its long-awaited launch.
Hundreds of United Launch Alliance employees are on strike as of Sunday.
In Orbit
Only two orbital launches in the last week:
- May 3 – China launched a Long March 3 rocket carrying a communications satellite.
- May 5 – United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg carrying NASA’s InSight Mars lander. Check out this post from Phil Plait to learn about the lander’s mission.
The astronauts on the ISS have been finding time to post many views of Earth on their Twitter feeds. Here are some of their best from the last week.
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic
– Van Morrison pic.twitter.com/R8TDg2fYoN— Ricky Arnold (@astro_ricky) May 1, 2018
Jamming on @Space_Station! pic.twitter.com/FEwnthrtee
— Scott D. Tingle (@Astro_Maker) May 1, 2018
On Monday, I captured this amazing image of all the places I called home for the first 32 years of my life. Many of my family and friends are in this photo, somewhere. #Michigan #Indiana #Ontario #Quebec pic.twitter.com/EVqPSdhxua
— A.J. (Drew) Feustel (@Astro_Feustel) May 2, 2018
Снова пролетали над великим Байкалом. Лёд тает на глазах!
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Once again we flew over lake #Baikal. The ice is melting every day. pic.twitter.com/DpcoLQqxhx— Anton Shkaplerov (@Anton_Astrey) May 4, 2018
The smoldering cauldron of Mount Etna on the island of Sicily. #Italy pic.twitter.com/BJwHxBHPzM
— Ricky Arnold (@astro_ricky) May 4, 2018
The @SpaceX #Dragon CRS-14 cargo ship after undocking from the @Space_Station pic.twitter.com/0UwB2g3nCv
— Oleg Artemyev (@OlegMKS) May 6, 2018
Weekly Links
Down to Earth
Elon Musk was busy this week entertaining his fans with tidbits about future SpaceX plans, including the tweet below, as well as this picture on Instagram of a tool for their next larger rocket, the BFR.
And then land on a bouncy house
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 16, 2018
NASA’s Planetary Science Division Director, Jim Greene, is now the agency’s new chief scientist.
Check out this music video by Snow Patrol which uses imagery from the ISS and was partially filmed at ESA.
In Orbit
There were three orbital rocket launches since my last post:
- April 10 – A Chinese Long March 4C rocket carrying three reconnaissance satellites.
- April 11 – An Indian PSLV rocket carrying a navigation satellite.
- April 14 – A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying a U.S. Air Force satellite.
On Monday, April 16th, A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch carrying NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope.
Around the Solar System
The International Astronautical Union (IAU) has approved official names for features on Pluto’s moon Charon, some named after iconic sci-fi figures such as Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
Because images of Saturn are just so damn stunning, here’s Saturn’s moon Dione as imaged by the late Cassini spacecraft.
Moon Dione and Saturn’s rings edge-on