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Weekly Links

Down to Earth

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will take advantage on an open seat in an upcoming Soyuz flight to ISS and fly their first homegrown astronaut into orbit.

The US Air Force has awarded a contract to SpaceX to launch a DOD satellite on a Falcon Heavy in 2020.

Last week the President of the United States signed Space Policy Directive 3, which establishes a formal National Space Traffic Management Policy.

In Orbit

There were no orbital rocket launches or major mission events at the International Space Station last week. However, the NanoRacks Remove Debris (or RemDeb) satellite was deployed from the ISS. This satellite will demonstrate techniques for reducing orbital debris in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The ISS crew continues to be busy with maintenance and science as always. Here’s a selection of some of their most interesting photos posted to Twitter last week.

In upcoming launches, Rocket Lab will attempt to launch their next Electron rocket on Tuesday (New Zealand time) and SpaceX will launch their next Dragon resupply to ISS next Friday.

Around the Solar System

Japan’s Hayabusa-2 continues to get closer to its destination, asteroid Ryugu. Some more detailed images of the unexplored rock were downlinked last week.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has been slowly lowering its orbit around asteroid Ceres to get new unprecedented views of the dwarf planet.

The large dust storm on the surface of Mars continues, with no contact from the rover Opportunity. Rover Curiosity continues to operate in Gale Crater, sending back this recent dusty “selfie.”

Data from Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft, which orbits Venus, has returned some interesting results about the variability of the planet’s day-night cycle.

Posted in Akatsuki, Ceres, Dawn, Dragon, Earth photography, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Hayabusa, ISS, Japan, Mars, MER Rovers, MSL, NanoRacks, NASA, New Space, politics, Rocket Lab, Rockets, SpaceX, UAE, Venus | No Comments »

Weekly Links

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

Another government shutdown on Thursday night nearly impacted US federal government operations again (including NASA) but was ended in the middle of the night with a budget deal, before facilities could open for work on Friday.

Sierra Nevada Corporation has received their official launch window from NASA for their first uncrewed resupply mission to the ISS, using their DreamChaser space plane.

A SpaceX booster that survived an ocean crash-landing from the GovSat-1 launch on January 31, was demolished at sea as it as deemed a safety hazard.

In Orbit

The only rocket launch since my last post was a big one: the demo flight of the Falcon Heavy. The rocket launched successfully during its first launch window last Tuesday, to the delight of crowds on the ground in Florida and millions of space fans who watched the livestream online. The next Falcon Heavy is scheduled tentatively a few months out, and will carry more official payloads.

Around the Solar System

Not exactly breaking news, but I love this newly released image of Saturn’s moons Titan and Rhea, from the now ended Cassini mission.

Rhea eclipses Titan

Out There

Two new studies of the planets in the Trappist-1 system reveal their atmospheric compositions and densities. It is very possible some of these planets may be habitable with liquid water.

Posted in astronomy, Cassini, Extrasolar planets, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Friday Links, ISS, NASA, politics, Rockets, Saturn, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, Titan, Trappist-1 | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

A new Kickstarter campaign seeks to build replicas of the Apollo guidance computer DSKY (Display and Keyboard) interface.

NASA’s 15th Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) mission started last week at Johnson Space Center. Four crew members will spend 45 days isolated on a simulated deep space mission.

The much anticipated Falcon Heavy launch is now less than 48 hours away. Eric Berger of Ars Technica has an excellent discussion about the new rocket and what it could mean for the industry (if successful).

In Orbit

Four successful orbital rocket launches since my last post

A spacewalk conducted by Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov on the International Space Station broke the Russian record for longest spacewalk, at 8 hours and 13 minutes.

An amateur astronomy discovered a NASA satellite that had been missing for over 10 years.

Around the Solar System

NASA published a beautiful composite panorama from the Curiosity rover looking back down the slopes of Mt. Sharp.

Curiosity also took a new selfie, looking the other direction.

Out There

Astronomers have announced that using gravitational microlensing they have discovered evidence of planets in another galaxy for the firs time.

Posted in astronomy, China, Extrasolar planets, Falcon Heavy, Friday Links, HERA, ISS, Japan, JPL, Mars, MSL, NASA, New Space, Planetary science, Rockets, Russia, SpaceX | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

The US federal government was shutdown briefly over the past weekend, and had some impacts to NASA, but ended by Tuesday morning. The federal budget decision has been moved by Congress to February 8th.

SpaceX completed the long-awaited “hot fire” test of their Falcon Heavy rocket on the launch pad in Florida. The company has reportedly set their launch date February 6th.

The flight controller consoles in NASA’s Historic Mission Control at Johnson Space Center began being removed this week as part of a longterm restoration effort.

NASA’s InSight lander, the next mission to Mars, launching this year, had its solar arrays tested at Lockheed Martin.

During the “Year of Education” onboard the ISS, astronauts will record lessons originally planned for Christa McAuliffe’s teacher-in-space flight on Challenger in 1986.

Johnson Space Center director Ellen Ochoa plans to retire this year.

The Google Lunar X Prize will end this March with no team winning the $20 million prize for sending a private rover mission to teh moon.

In Orbit

There were two rocket launches last week:

The Ariane 5 rocket had some kind of anomaly with the upper stage and placed the payloads in the wrong orbit.

ISS astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle completed a spacewalk last Tuesday to service to Canadarm-2. Unfortunately, an issue discovered after the spacewalk has caused a change of plans, and a second excusion planned for this coming Monday will be used to enact some repairs.

Around the Solar System

Some news from Mars:

  • Researchers hope to observe a global dust storm on Mars in the near future to validate a theory that dust storms contribute to the loss of the planet’s atmosphere.
  • Data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has found potential ice sheets at mid-latitudes on the red planet.
Posted in astronauts, China, Falcon Heavy, Friday Links, ISS, JSC, Mars, NASA, New Space, Planetary science, politics, Rockets, SpaceX | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Some recent crew assignment changes for the ISS have been receiving a lot of press, including the replacement of Jeanette Epps with Serena Aunon-Chancellor for a launch this summer. NASA has not provided specific details on the reason for the change.

As of Saturday morning, the US federal government has no official funding and must shutdown many services. This shutdown affects NASA and its field centers. The specific impacts to NASA operations will become more clear if the shutdown extends into the work week on Monday morning. In the meantime, NASA will press forward with the ISS spacewalk on Tuesday.

There was a lot of talk last week about an update on the schedule for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which has slipped according to a report from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP). There was also a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the same topic.. The reports outline a few issues that the commercial providers – SpaceX and Boeing – both need to work through before their rockets and capsules can be certified to flight NASA astronauts to the ISS. Both companies answered questions at a congressional hearing following the report on Wednesday.

SpaceX still has not conducted a static fire of the Falcon Heavy rocket on Pad 39A. They are expected to try again this coming week with a potential launch before the end of the month.

In Orbit

The following rocket launches occurred last week:

Out There

A detailed study of Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 121102, one of the few repeating signals, has yielded a new hypothesis that these highly energetic events are caused by massive black holes.

NASA has demonstrated the concept of deep space navigation using neutron stars with the NICER payload onboard the ISS.

Posted in astronauts, astronomy, China, commercial crew, Falcon Heavy, Friday Links, ISS, Japan, NASA, New Space, politics, Rocket Lab, Rockets, SETI, SpaceX | 2 Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Virgin Galactic conducted their first glide flight of SpaceShipTwo since last August.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy has been attempting to conduct a static fire test ahead of launch, but has scrubbed three days in a row. It has been rescheduled for Monday.

In Orbit

Launches this past week included:

In the case of the SpaceX launch, there have been many reports from reliable journalists over the past week that the classified Zuma payload perhaps did not reach orbit. However, no official statement has yet been forthcoming.

Upcoming launches of interest include a ULA Atlas V from Florida on Jan 19, the next Rocket Lab Electron launch attempt on Jan 20, and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy test flight (possibly on Jan 25?).

On the ISS, the 13th SpaceX Dragon mission ended successfully with release and splashdown. SpaceX ships are currently retrieving the capsule to return its science samples.

Posted in China, Falcon Heavy, Friday Links, India, ISS, NASA, New Space, PSLV, Rocket Lab, Rockets, SpaceX, ULA, Virgin Galactic | 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 »

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