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Down to Earth

SpaceX’s second Falcon Heavy launch has been delayed until October.

Two New Space rocket companies, Virgin Orbit and Rocket Lab, have both been awarded contracts to fly NASA cubesat missions.

Mark Geyer will replace Ellen Ochoa as director of the Johnson Space Center at the end of May.

Tom Wolfe, the author of The Right Stuff, has died at 88-years old.

In Orbit

There were two orbital rocket launches since my last post:

  • May 8 – China launched a Long March 4C rocket carrying an Earth-observing satellite.
  • May 11 – SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a communications satellite for Bangladesh.

The Falcon 9 rocket was the first “Block 5” version, which is the final upgrade of the design.

A collaboration between JAXA, the University of Nairobi, and the UN deployed the first Kenyan cubesat from the ISS last week.

Tomorrow morning, at roughly 8 AM Eastern, ISS astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel will be venturing out the airlock on a scheduled EVA to perform maintenance and upgrades.

Check out this picture of the erupting Hawaiian volcano, Kilauea, taken by the astronauts on ISS:

Around the Solar System

The Mars Cube One cubesats, on their way to Mars as part of the InSight mission, turned around and took this image of home this week.

A new paper in the journal Nature Astronomy includes a re-analysis of data from the Galileo spacecraft which orbiter Jupiter in the 90s. The magnetic anomalies seen during close fly-bys of the moon Europa seem to confirm the existence of water plumes, which could be sampled by the upcoming Europa Clipper mission.

Posted in astronomy, China, Earth photography, Europa, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Friday Links, InSight, ISS, JPL, NASA, New Space, Rockets, Spacewalk, SpaceX, Virgin Orbit | No Comments »

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.

Falcon 9 fairing opens its parafoil after reentering the atmosphere

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on

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.

Posted in astronauts, Atlas V, China, Dragon, Earth photography, Falcon 9, Firefly, Friday Links, InSight, ISS, JPL, JWST, Mars, Rockets, SpaceX, ULA | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Former astronaut Bruce McCandless II died at 80 years old. McCandless was selected as an astronaut in 1966 but didn’t fly until 1984 on STS-41-B. McCandless is probably best known as the first astronaut to do an untethered EVA using the MMU on that first flight. He flew again on STS-31 in 1990.

SpaceX released photos of the first Falcon Heavy rocket being readied for flight, as well as its payload.

The Falcon Heavy rocket was temporarily vertical on the launch pad for fit checks ahead of its January launch.

NASA completed a parachute drop test of the Orion spacecraft in Arizona. The test used only 2 of the 3 parachutes, to validate a parachute failure case.

NASA conducted a water suppression system test at launch pad 39B at KSC in preparation for SLS flights. Check out the video below:

NASA has selected two finalists for a new robotic planetary mission. The mission will either be a comet sample return or a Titan quadcopter.

The new American Girl doll will be an aspiring astronaut, with space suit and all.

In Orbit

There were five orbital rocket launches since my last post, two weeks ago:

  • Dec 23 – SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg in California, carrying communications satellites for Iridium.
  • Dec 23 – JAXA launched an H-IIA rocket carrying two scientific satellites.
  • Dec 23 – The Chinese space agency launched a Long March 2D rocket carrying an Earth-observing payload.
  • Dec 25 – The Chinese space agency launched a Long March 2C rocket carrying payloads for the Chinese military.
  • Dec 26 – Roscosmos launched a Zenit rocket carrying a communications satellite for Angola.

The Anogosat-1 payload initially had a problem and lost comm with ground control. However, reports in the past day or two indicate that communications have been restored.

The SpaceX launch was their 18th and last of the year – in 2016 they launched only 6 rockets. The launch was just after sunset and created spectacular views from the LA metro area. The video below from a drone is one of the best examples:

Meanwhile, the Soyuz rocket that launched on December 17th arrived at ISS successfully on Wednesday. The ISS crew has now returned to a full complement of 6. One of their Christmas treats was an onboard screening of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Also aboard the space station, the Progress 67P freighter undocked from the ISS this week and re-entered the earth’s atmosphere, carrying trash. The freighter will be replaced by 69P in February.

Here are some more pictures from the astronauts aboard the ISS the enjoy on your holiday weekend (as always, follow them on Twitter here).

Posted in astronauts, astronomy, China, Earth photography, Falcon Heavy, Friday Links, History, ISS, Japan, NASA, New Space, Orion, Planetary science, Rockets, Russia, Saturn, SLS, SpaceX | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

LEGO is releasing a “women of NASA” set.

The Apollo 11 capsule Columbia has started its around the country tour with a new exhibit at Space Center Houston: Destination Moon.

This Lyft commercial referencing the Apollo program is cute, but is missing a shout out to Michael Collins.

Jeff Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, conducted the first test fire of their new BE-4 rocket engine.

In Orbit

The ISS Expedition 53 crew completed the second and third spacewalks in their October series. All planned tasks were completed successfully, leaving the space station with some new cameras and a repaired robotic arm. The rest of the year on ISS will be focused on science research, with some critical deliveries onboard a Cygnus resupply and SpaceX Dragon resupply.

Since my last post on October 9th, there have been four orbital rocket launches:

  • October 11 – SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying two geostationary communication satellites. The first stage was a previously flown booster and was recovered on a droneship.
  • October 13 – A Russian Rokot launched carrying an Earth obesrvation payload for ESA.
  • October 14 – A Soyuz rocket launched from Baikonaur carrying an unmanned Progress resupply bound for the ISS.
  • October 15 – ULA launched an Atlas V rocket carrying a national security payload for the NRO.

The Progress freighter docked successfully two days after launch.

Below are a few of the best pictures taken onboard the ISS from the past two weeks. If you want to help maintain the amazing archive of millions of pictures of Earth taken from ISS, now there’s a way! Check out Cosmo Quest’s new Image Detective project.

https://twitter.com/astro_paolo/status/920369795111051264

ISS astronauts tried to capitalize on a cultural craze down here on Earth with this recent video:

Out There

Hot on the heels of the Nobel Prize in Physics announcement, LIGO made another big discovery using gravitational waves: the first signal from the collision of two neutron stars was detected and confirmed. Phil Plait has a wonderful poetic post explaining what this means for our understanding of the universe.

Posted in Blue Origin, Earth photography, ESA, Futurist, ISS, Mission Control, NASA, Orbital Sciences, Pop Space, Rockets, Russia, SpaceX, ULA | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Retired NASA astronaut Terry Virts has published a “coffee table book” of images he took while aboard the ISS during Expeditions 42 and 43.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the discovery of gravitational waves by the LIGO team.

Canadian company MDA has acquired DigitalGlobe and the new merged corporation will be changing their name to Maxar Technologies. MDA is the company that build the Canadarms and DigitalGlobe is a major provider of orbital imagery for users like Google.

In Orbit

Three rocket launches since my last post. All of them occurred today, October 9th:

  • China launched a Long March 2D rocket carrying a Venezuelan satellite.
  • SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 10 new communication satellites for Iridium.
  • Japan launched an H-2A rocket carrying a native navigation satellite.

Things have been quite busy up on the ISS. Astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Randy Bresnik executed the first of a series of spacewalks last week to maintain the station’s robotic arm. They will go out again tomorrow, October 10th, to continue the work. Here are a few pictures from last week’s EVA:

NASA has announced plans to keep the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) on the ISS for longer than planned and use it as a logistics module.

Out There

A recent study of “Tabby’s Star” using NASA’s orbiting observatories Spitzer and Swift has a new theory for the unexplained dips in brightness: dust. The new hypothesis is compelling because the telescopes detected differences in the dimming at different wavelengths, which implies something transparent like dust.

Posted in astronomy, Canada, China, Earth photography, Extrasolar planets, Friday Links, ISS, JPL, NASA, Planetary science, politics, Pop Space, Rockets, Russia, SpaceX | No Comments »

Weekly Links

I’m back from my own personal August recess and catching up on almost a month of space news. Here’s your headline dump for August 14 to September 9! A lot has happened

Down to Earth

The Trump Administration has named Oklahoma Congressman Jim Bridenstine as their nominee for NASA administrator.

The Chinese and European astronauts conducted a joint survival training exercise off the coast of China.

Sierra Nevada Corporation conducted a “captive carry” flight of their Dream Chaser spaceplane.

Last week an ESA Ariane 5 rocket had a pad abort. The agency is still investigating.

In Orbit

The Dragon capsule launched two days earlier docked with the ISS on August 16th.

The day after the cargo. arrival, cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergey Ryazanskiy conducted a successful spacewalk to do space station maintenance as well as some small satellites deployments.

Then on September 3rd a Soyuz returned to Earth, safely carrying Jack Fischer, Peggy Whitson, and Fyodor Yurchikhin to the steppes of Kazakhstan. Both Yurchikhin and Whitson now have accumulated over 600 days in space.

Meanwhile on the ground, a dedicated team of flight controllers was riding out Hurricane Harvey in Houston’s Mission Control Center to ensure the successful undocking and return of the crew.

Speaking of hurricanes, the ISS crew has taken some incredible imagery of Irma has it makes its way across the Caribbean and now Florida.

Lots of launches while I was out. Here’s a worldwide rundown:

Around the Solar System

Congratulations to the engineers and scientists on the New Horizons project; the International Astronomical Union has selected many of their original choices for features on Pluto as official names!

Good news for Mars enthusiasts: there is new talk at NASA of planning a robotic Mars sample return mission for the middle of the 2020s.

Posted in astronauts, China, Earth photography, ESA, Friday Links, India, ISS, Japan, JSC, Mars, Mission Control, NASA, New Horizons, New Space, Orbital Sciences, Planetary science, Pluto, politics, Rockets, Russia, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Rocket Lab released some information about their failed test launch last month. It turns out the issue was due to some ground segment hardware and they should be able to recover and continue with another test launch soon.

SpaceX is removing the Rotating Service Structure (RSS) at pad 39A at KSC. The RSS was needed for Space Shuttle launches from the historic pad. The RSS from 39B has already been removed in preparations for the SLS program.

The much anticipated launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may get delayed from late 2018 into 2019 due to a launch site conflict down in French Guiana, where JWST will be launched on an ESA rocket.

A Japanese rocket launch was cancelled this week due to an unspecified glitch. JAXA was trying to launch a new GPS satellite.

In Orbit

This morning, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon resupply capsule to the ISS. The launch was flawless with a successful first stage landing at Landing Zone 1. The Dragon will rendezvous with the ISS on Wednesday.

Among the cargo on the Dragon capsule is a new experimental super computer, a cosmic ray detector, and a slew of other experiments.

The 6-person Expedition 52 crew is really hitting their stride with their on-orbit photography, with daily Twitter updates to enjoy. The mission will wind down with the return of Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer in early September, followed shortly by the launch of the second half of the Expedition 53 crew.

https://twitter.com/Astro2fish/status/895770661628465152

 

Posted in Earth photography, ESA, Friday Links, ISS, JWST, NASA, Rocket Lab, Rockets, SLS, SpaceX | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Leonardo DiCaprio is going to produce a new TV series based on The Right Stuff.

NASA’s new TDRS-M satellite had a mishap during pre-flight processing. Launch has been rescheduled while repairs are conducted.

Virgin Galactic conducted another drop test of their SpaceShipTwo vehicle at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

NASA’s fourteenth crew of the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) program started their 45-day mission yesterday.

Rocket startup Vector Space Systems conducted a test launch of their suborbital rocket on Thursday. Here’s a short video of liftoff.

In Orbit

The International Space Station crew is back up to 6 after a new Soyuz launched from Kazakhstan and docked just a few hours later. The three new ISS crew members, Sergey Ryazanskiy, Paolo Nespoli, and Randy Bresnik, are all spaceflight veterans.

There are now 5 active Twitter users on ISS, sharing their thoughts, activities, and views with us! Check out their posts at this feed.

In addition to the Soyuz launch, the only other rocket launch in the past two weeks was a European Space Agency Vega rocket. The rocket launched on August 2 from French Guiana carrying two earth observing satellites.

Around the Solar System

In case you had forgotten that there are two active NASA rovers on the surface of Mars, here are some beautiful panoramas from Opportunity, on the edge of Endeavour crater.

Results are in of the stellar occultation observation of object 2014 MU69, and astronomers think it may actually be a binary, rather that single piece of rock. 2014 MU69 is the Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) that the New Horizons spacecraft will visit in 2019.

New evidence suggests there may be more water hidden beneath the surface of the moon than previously thought.

Out There

Speaking of moons, a new paper analyzing the light curve data from Kepler of a distant star shows the possibility of a large planet with a large moon in orbit. Hubble is scheduled to do follow up observations in October to confirm the finding.

Posted in astronauts, Earth photography, ESA, Extrasolar planets, Friday Links, HERA, Hubble, ISS, Moon, NASA, New Space, Planetary science, Pop Space, Rockets, Vector Space, Virgin Galactic | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Check out this new video of Blue Origin’s orbital rocket concept, New Glenn.

If you like planetary science and are excited by the idea of future missions to Europa, you should read this detailed post at Ars Technica about how Congressman John Culbertson is working to make it happen.

SpaceX successfully conducted the static fire test for their next rocket launch from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. A Falcon 9 carrying a commercial satellite will liftoff very early Tuesday morning, March 14th.

In Orbit

Only one orbital rocket launch since my last post. A European Space Agency Vega rocket launched the Earth-observing Sentinel-2B satellite from French Guiana on March 7th.

As usual, there are lots of good pictures from the crew on the ISS to share. Here’s a selection.

https://twitter.com/Thom_astro/status/839769655971627008

https://twitter.com/Thom_astro/status/839831200780988418

Around the Solar System

New data from the Dawn probe in orbit of Ceres indicates that the “bright spots” are much younger than the craters they inhabit. This is evidence of relatively recent cryovulcanism.

Check out these incredible images of Saturn’s tiny moon Pan. It has a unique shape no one has ever seen before.

This is a pretty cool series of images showing a global dust storm moving across Mars.

Posted in Blue Origin, Cassini, Ceres, Dawn, Earth photography, ESA, Europa, Friday Links, ISS, JPL, Mars, NASA, New Space, Planetary science, politics, Rockets, Science, SpaceX | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

NASA has finalized an agreement with Boeing to use the extra seats on two Soyuz flights to the ISS over the next year and a half for additional US astronauts. There is some contractual stuff going on here, but basically NASA is going to use seats that Roscosmos was going to leave empty to save money.

Virgin Galactic has spun off its LauncherOne program into a new company called Virgin Orbit.

Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin is now getting in on the new moon missions also. According to the Washington Post (owned by Bezos), Blue Origin has floated a proposal to the new US presidential administration that they want to help support NASA missions to the moon with their Blue Moon concept.

PBS News Hour did a brief segment on all of this new interest in lunar missions:

In Orbit

Two rocket launches since my last post:

It’s hard to keep up with the current ISS crew, the members of Expedition 50, as they tweet like its all they do in what little spare time they have. Here’s a selection of the best pictures from just the last week.

 

Around the Solar System

NASA’s MAVEN probe in orbit of Mars executed an avoidance maneuver of about 0.4 m/s to avoid colliding with the moon Phobos. That velocity change is small, about on the order of the debris avoidance maneuvers we do with the ISS.

Check out these dust devils spotted by Curiosity rover on Mars.

Did you know that Saturn’s moon Enceladus is half cratered and half smooth? Check out this recent image from NASA’s Cassini probe to see for yourself.

Posted in astronauts, Blue Origin, Boeing, Cassini, China, commercial crew, Earth photography, Enceladus, Friday Links, ISS, Mars, Moon, MSL, NASA, New Space, Orion, politics, Rockets, Saturn, Space Tourism, SpaceX, ULA, Virgin Galactic | No Comments »
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