Rockets from Cassiopeia

Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Down to Earth

The United States federal government remains partial shutdown as it has been since mid-December. This is far more than a story about NASA, of course. But since this is a space blog, here is an article from the Orlando Sentinel about how the current situation is affecting some NASA contractors in Florida.

NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation Center in West Virginia has been renamed for Katherine Johnson, a native of the state.

Nancy Grace Roman, who served as NASA’s chief of astronomy in the 1970’s and is credited with ensuring the Hubble Space Telescope project moved forward, has died at 93 years of age.

The Dragon capsule for “Demo Mission 1” was rolled out to the launch pad in Florida. This test mission will be in preparation for the first flight with astronauts onboard.

Preparing to return human spaceflight capabilities to the United States, Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 went vertical at historic Launch Complex 39A in Florida. pic.twitter.com/igggZdCU9k

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 5, 2019

NASA had to postpone a visit by the head of Roscosmos (Russia’s space agency) due to political pressure.

In Orbit

It’s been a tough time for space telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 is currently inactive due to a malfunction. Also, Russia’s Spektr-R telescope is reportedly out of communication.

There were 10 orbital rocket launches since my last post on December 16th:

• December 19 – an Indian GSLV rocket launched a communications satellite.
• December 19 – an Arianespace Soyuz rocket launched a satellite for the French military.
• December 21 – a Russian Proton rocket launched a military communication satellite.
• December 21 – A Chinese Long March 11 rocket launched a low Earth orbit communications satellite.
• December 23 – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a GPS satellite for the US Air Force.
• December 24 – A Chinese Long March 3C rocket launched an experimental payload.
• December 27 – A Russian Soyuz rocket launched from Vostochny carrying a slew of commercial payloads for various customers.
• December 29 – A Chinese Long March 2D rocket launched a low Earth orbit communications satellite.
• January 10 – A Chinese Long March 3B rocket launched a geostationary communications satellite.
• January 11 – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched carrying communications satellites for Iridium.

On the ISS, things have been busy with the usual ebb and flow of operations. On December 19th, the three person crew of Alex Gerst, Serena Aunon-Chancellor, and Sergey Propokyev returned to Earth in their Soyuz capsule.

Meanwhile, the remaining ISS crew was busy organizing supplies and conducting science delivered on the latest Dragon capsule. The capsule, designated Dragon-16, returned to Earth on Sunday, January 13th, splashing down for recovery in the Pacific Ocean.

Farewell Dragon! #Canadarm2 just released SpaceX-16 capsule, returning experiments to scientists around the World.
Au revoir Dragon! Canadarm2 vient de relâcher la capsule SpaceX-16, qui rapporte des expériences à des scientifiques de partout à travers le monde. pic.twitter.com/3t3BlgIMCo

— David Saint-Jacques (@Astro_DavidS) January 14, 2019

Around the Solar System

NASA’s New Horizons probe – famous for its flyby of Pluto in 2015 – successfully imaged a distant Kuiper Belt object known as 2014 MU69, or Ultima Thule. This flyby was many years in the making, even though the object was discovered well after New Horizons launched in 2006.

China successfully landed their second lunar rover, Yutu 2, part of the Chang’e 4 mission, on the far side of the moon.

China has released more images from the Chang’e 4 mission on the far side of the moon, including a panorama and a video from the lander’s descent camera. See more: https://t.co/wFvyJiKA5a pic.twitter.com/Jizn0lT8Wv

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) January 13, 2019

Down to Earth

In late July, Virgin Galactic conducted a third powered test flight of their new SpaceShipTwo spaceplane.

In a ceremony at Johnson Space Center, NASA announced the names of the astronauts who will fly the first flights of the Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Dragon, the first crewed missions from US soil since 2011.

SpaceX installed a shiny new crew access arm to launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.

Russia has selected a new class of 8 cosmonauts.

United States Vice President Mike Pence visited the Johnson Space Center and gave a speech on future plans for exploration.

Rocket Lab’s next Electron launch has been delayed further.

In Orbit

Operations at the ISS over the past month have included two visiting vehicle departures and one spacewalk. On August 3rd, the latest SpaceX Dragon cargo vehicle undocked from ISS and splashed down in the Pacific. On August 22nd, a Russian unmanned Progress freighter undocked from the ISS. On august 15th, two Russian cosmonauts, Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Propokyev, conducted a lengthy spacewalk to complete maintenance and science tasks.

There were 8 orbital rocket launches since my last post on July 23rd:

• July 25 – ESA Ariane 5 rocket launched carrying Galileo navigation satellites.
• July 25 – SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from California carrying communications satellites for Iridium.
• July 29 – Chinese Long March 3B rocket launched carrying BeiDou navigation satellites.
• July 31 – Chinese Long March 4B rocket launched carrying an Earth-observing satellite.
• August 7 – SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida carrying an Indonesian communications satellite.
• August 12 – ULA Delta IV Heavy rocket launched from Florida carrying NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.
• August 22 – ESA Vega rocket launched carrying an Earth-observing mission.
• August 24 – Chinese Long March 3B rocket launched carrying more BeiDou navigation satellites.

Around the Solar System

The Martian dust storm is waning but NASA mission teams have yet to hear from the Opportunity rover.

Down to Earth

NASA announced a new class of 6 flight directors for human spaceflight at Johnson Space Center.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) performed a pad abort test of their launch escape tower for future crewed spaceflights.

Launch towers at Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral were demolished last week. These launch towers were built for the now retired Delta II rocket. Instead, Moon Express will use the site.

Launch industry newcomer Rocket Lab plans to open a second launch site somewhere in the USA.

James Morhard has been nominated to the open position of NASA deputy administrator.

Astronaut Dan Burbank has retired from NASA.

In Orbit

NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has entered a hibernation mode as it nears the end of its long mission.

There were three orbital rocket launches since my last post on July 1st:

• July 9 – A Chinese Long March 2C rocket launched two satellites for Pakistan.
• July 9 – a Chinese Long March 3A rocket launched a Beidou navigation satellite.
• July 9 – A Russian Soyuz rocket launched a Progress resupply craft on the way to ISS.

Operations have been busy on the International Space Station. The Dragon resupply ship that launched at the end of June arrived at ISS on July 2nd. Then the above mentioned Progress resupply arrived.

On Sunday morning, the latest Cygnus cargo spacecraft departed the ISS packed full of trash. Before it left, it performed a demonstration maneuver to reboost the ISS.

Upcoming notable launches include a SpaceX launch from Florida on July 20th and a SpaceX launch from California on July 22nd. Still no firm launch date on the rescheduled Rocket Lab launch.

Around the Solar System

Still no update from NASA’s Opportunity rover, which has been socked in by a dust storm on Mars.

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).

Resistance wasn’t futile. @NanoRacks REMDEB satellite deployed on Wednesday morning from @Space_Station. pic.twitter.com/v9e5LYEo2W

— Ricky Arnold (@astro_ricky) June 22, 2018

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.

The first photo I took out the window of our #Soyuz after launch. I have no idea where it is. But I was surprised to see the Earth move much faster in the lower Soyuz orbit, compared to ISS. #Horizons pic.twitter.com/AK7dh44S3l

— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) June 18, 2018

Sergey demonstrates how we use miniaturized astronauts for spacewalking. #EVA51 pic.twitter.com/iuudJSSuPn

— Ricky Arnold (@astro_ricky) June 18, 2018

Moon over Lake #Malawi #Africa. If that isn’t the title of a song, it probably should be. #Tanzania #Mozambique #Zambia pic.twitter.com/5Q0nZ8ow7x

— Ricky Arnold (@astro_ricky) June 19, 2018

Saw my first Aurora Australis on this mission today, my silent magical old friend. 6 nose prints on the window, despite being busy with #science. Quite fittingly, the ship in the foreground is the one that carried @AstroSerena, Sergey & me into space almost 2 weeks ago. #Horizons pic.twitter.com/vlQNvQwUDM

— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) June 20, 2018

The alluring #Azores and a sprinkling of popcorn clouds on a blue, marble floor. #Portugal pic.twitter.com/JDeX3VBHut

— Ricky Arnold (@astro_ricky) June 21, 2018

I think I finally found the answer to a question I've been asked a 1000 times. "Can we see the Great Wall of China from the #ISS?" Next to impossible with the naked eye. But I tried with an 800 mm tele lens. Still tough to spot. What do you think, is this it? #Horizons pic.twitter.com/NdlJvRCCNP

— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) June 21, 2018

#Palmanova is an unusual town in northeastern #Italy. It is an excellent example of star fort of the late Renaissance. pic.twitter.com/YRb5e1AEb9

— Oleg Artemyev (@OlegMKS) June 22, 2018

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.

Down to Earth

Legendary astronaut and moonwalker, Alan Bean, died at age 86.

Air Force test pilot and Shuttle astronaut, Don Peterson, died at age 84.

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo had another powered test flight.

Garrett Reisman, a former astronaut who had been serving at SpaceX as the director of space operations, has taken a new faculty position at USC.

NASA obtained imagery of the volcanic eruption in Guatemala.

The President of the United States signed Space Policy Directive 2, which aims to reduce the regulatory burden on commercial spaceflight.

In Orbit

A number of orbital rocket launches since my last post on May 20th:

• May 20 – An Orbital ATK Antares rocket launched with a Cygnus cargo freighter on its way to the ISS.
• May 22 – a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg carrying satellites for Iridium and a gravitational science satellite for Germany.
• June 2 – A Chinese Long March 2D rocket launched carrying a pair of Earth-observing satellites.
• June 4 – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida carrying a communications satellite for SES.

Notable rocket launches coming up include a Soyuz rocket with 3 astronauts launching form Kazakhstan on Wednesday morning.

The Cygnus spacecraft was successfully captured by the ISS robotic arm on May 24 and installed on a docking port, delivering tons of supplies.

#tbt! The @OrbitalATK #Cygnus brings the goods to @Space_Station and @Astro_Maker uses #Canadarm to go out and grab them. pic.twitter.com/WtVWGZeVXL

— Ricky Arnold (@astro_ricky) May 31, 2018

NOAA’s new GOES-17 weather satellite has a serious problem that will prevent it from retrieving all the intended data.

On June 3rd, three crew members undocked from the ISS and landed back in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz after 168 days in space.

Around the Solar System

The discovery of an asteroid in a retrograde orbit (backwards) has raised questions about whether it could be a captured interstellar object.

The Curiosity rover on Mars is back to drilling samples, after that particular instrument had been held in reserve for about a year.

A new study of Pluto data from New Horizons finds that there are likely dunes made of solid methane on its surface.

Down to Earth

After much delay over the last year, the US Senate has finally confirmed former Congressman Jim Bridenstine as the new NASA administrator.

Orbital ATK is designing a new rocket for the Air Force, to be named OmegA.

A new Netflix film, Mercury 13, covers the participation (or lack thereof) of women pilots in America’s early space program.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) received over 4,000 applicants to be astronauts in their budding space program.

Former cosmonaut Vladimir Lykakhov, who spent 333 days in space, has died.

Scott Altman and Thomas Jones have been inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame.

In Orbit

Two orbital rocket launches since my last post:

• April 18 – A Russian Proton rocket launched carrying a military communications satellite.
• April 18 – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched carrying NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

Down to Earth

Dr. Stephen Hawking died on March 14th, at age 76. The New York Times published a thorough review of his life and accomplishments.

NASA’s acting administrator Robert Lightfoot is retiring.

The startup rocket company Rocket Lab plans to launch their first commercial flight this spring. The rocket will be named It’s Business Time which follows in the naming tradition of their first two test rockets: It’s a Test and Still Testing.

Speaking of small rocket startups, Firefly Aerospace used the popular South by Southwest conference to publicly demonstrate an engine test (video below). The engine would power the upper stage of their planned Firefly Alpha rocket.

If you like rocket engine tests, then watch this new video of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine, posted by Jeff Bezos last week.

New test video of Blue’s 550K lbf thrust, ox-rich staged combustion, LNG-fueled BE-4 engine. The test is a mixture ratio sweep at 65% power level and 114 seconds in duration. Methane (or LNG) has proved to be an outstanding fuel choice. @BlueOrigin #GradatimFerociter pic.twitter.com/zWV0jWXIvx

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) March 13, 2018

The US federal government passed a new funding bill for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2018 last week. The large omnibus bill includes $20.7 for NASA. If you’d like a comparison of NASA’s budget over the years, check out this Wikipdia page.

In Orbit

Over the past two weeks there have been only two orbital rocket launches. The first was a Chinese Long March 2D rocket carrying an Earth-observing satellite. The second was a Soyuz rocket launched from Kazakhstan carrying 3 crew members on their way to the International Space Station.

Oleg Artemyev, Drew Feustel, and Ricky Arnold docked to the ISS successfully this past Friday, two days after launch. They join Anton Shkaplerov, Norishige Kanai, and Scott Tingle for the ongoing Expedition 55 mission.

ソユーズ宇宙船が宇宙ステーションに到着し、第55次長期滞在クルー6人が揃いました！

ゲームかアニメで、最後の敵との大決戦の前に、仲間が全員集まったかのような感じがします。
船外活動、ドラゴン宇宙船の打上げなど、大きなイベントが目白押しですが、みんなで協力して乗り切りたいと思います。 pic.twitter.com/Xc67DuzywT

— 金井 宣茂 (@Astro_Kanai) March 24, 2018

Swarm Technologies launched four very small satellites in January without license from the FCC. In fact, the FCC had specifically asked them not to launch because they were too small to track. Now Swarm may not be able to receive future licenses.

Around the Solar System

Mission managers on the New Horizons project have chosen the name Ultima Thule for the small Kuiper Belt object which will be visited by the probe next year. The name would not become official until the International Astronomical Union (IAU) can weigh in.

Recent observations from the Dawn spacecraft reveal that the surface of the asteroid Ceres is dynamic, with changing amounts of visible ice and other materials.

The Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009, will likely run out of fuel this year.

Out There

A couple of interesting new exoplanet systems were announced recently:

• K2 data revealed a system of 3 “super-Earths” around star GJ 9827, 100 light-years away.
• Ground observations reveal 6 gas giants orbiting HD 34445, two of them in system’s habitable zone.

In Orbit

The new National Space Council hosted their second meeting, this time at Kennedy Space Center.

Bigelow Aerospace has announced a new sister company, Bigelow Space Operations, who will market their future goals of launching and operating independent space stations.

The latest HI-SEAS space analog mission in Hawaii was put on hold due to some kind of medical emergency.

In Orbit

The only launch of the week was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg in Californial. The rocket carried three satellites – a payload for the Spanish military and two technology demonstration satellites for SpaceX. The company also tried to “catch” one of the rocket’s discarded payload fairings at sea, but missed slightly. Here is a photo from Instagram of the fairing floating near the SpaceX’s recovery ship.

A Soyuz carrying three space station residents will undock from the ISS on Tuesday morning and return to Earth. Recovery crews are already getting ready out in Kazakhstan.

In a few hours we’ll start pre-staging helos and teams for the landing of @Astro_Sabot @AstroAcaba and Misurkin from @Space_Station. Karaganda, Kazakhstan. pic.twitter.com/SVALfAFaJk

— Bill Ingalls (@ingallsimages) February 25, 2018

Around the Solar System

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had a bit of a scare last week, entering safe mode for about 3 days after a battery malfunction. MRO came out of safe mode on the 23rd and NASA reported that it was being returned to nominal service. MRO is a key asset, as it relays all communications from the two rovers on the surface.

Meanwhile, down on the surface, Opportunity continues to trundle along in Endeavour crater. JPL even announced some new observations this past week.

The Osiris-Rex spacecraft took an image of Earth from 63 million km away. The probe is currently on its way to the asteroid belt.

Out There

I am in love with this unique interpretation of the Hubble Deep Field from the new website Astronomy Sound of the Month. Follow the link and then, with your sound on, move your cursor over the image to hear different notes correlated to the age of each galaxy.

Down to Earth

The Center for the Advancement of Science In Space (CASIS)  – the organization that manages the ISS as a national laboratory – will be looking for a new executive director after Gregory Johnson steps down.

The White House released their proposed federal budget for 2019, including details for NASA. Here’s a summary from Parabolic Arc of what the budget would include for the space agency. The Planetary Society also has a great summary up on their blog and also covered it in a recent podcast.

Kennedy Space Center’s visitor center has opened a new interactive “Astronaut Training Experience“.

In Orbit

After the launch of a Progress resupply craft to the ISS was scrubbed last Sunday, it was launch successful on Tuesday and docked to the ISS two days later.

Other than the Progress, launched on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonaur, the only other launch last week was a Chinese Long March 3B rocket carrying two global navigation satellites.

ESA celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Columbus modules launch to the ISS.

Two astronauts, Mark Vande Hei of NASA and Norishige Kanai of JAXA, completed a spacewalk on Friday to fix the SSRMS, as well as some other maintenance tasks.

Around the Solar System

The Opportunity rover has now spent more than 5,000 martian days (or “sols”) on Mars. To commemorate the occasion, the JPL rover team commanded Opportunity to take a “self-portrait” mosaic using the cameras on the end of its robotic arm. This is the first time this has been done with Opportunity.

Opportunity self-portrait

New Horizons has broken the record held by Voyager’s famous Pale Blue Dot image for farthest images taken from Earth. The probe is on its way to an encounter with 2014 MU69 next January. While it is cruising through the Kuiper Belt, it took advantage of its “near” pass to two other objects and took some low resolution images of 2012 HZ84 and 2021 HE85.

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.