Rockets from Cassiopeia

Archive for the ‘Pop Space’ Category

Down to Earth

Legendary astronaut Gene Cernan has died at the age of 82. Captain Cernan had an incredible career in the Navy and then at NASA, where he flew on three important missions: Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17. Gemini 9 had Cernan’s harrowing spacewalk (the second for an American); Apollo 10 was the dress rehearsal for the moon landing, in which Cernan and Stafford got to within just miles of the lunar surface before a planned abort; Apollo 17 is of course known as the final mission to the surface of the moon. If you haven’t read Cernan’s autobiography or seen the recent biography about him (both called The Last Man on the Moon) you should put them both on your list.

NASA administrator Charlie Bolden resigned last Thursday – as is tradition for most presidential appointees – the day before inauguration of president Donald J. Trump. NASA is currently being run by acting administrator Robert Lightfoot.

Andy Weir, author of The Martian, announced on social medial that he will be working with CBS on a new show set in Houston’s mission control.

CBS picked up my TV show pilot! Working with Aditya Sood again (producer of "The Martian") again. Should be fun! https://t.co/9EqCcZGF1P

— Andy Weir (@andyweirauthor) January 17, 2017

In Orbit

A small Japanese rocket, which would have been the smallest ever to make orbit, failed during a launch attempt last Saturday, January 14th. The rocket was carrying a single small cubesat.

However, two rockets did make successful launches within the last week. First, SpaceX had a spectacular return to flight on Saturday, January 14th, placing 10 satellites into orbit for Iridium after a flawless launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg in California. They even stuck the landing on the first stage recovery.

Lastly, on January 20th, United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas V carrying a USAF satellite, GEO 3.

Meanwhile, a failure investigation has narrowed down the loss of a Russian Soyuz rocket last month to an oxidizer pump, leading the Russian space agency to make some part replacements on both the next manned and unmanned flights. Hopefully we will see Soyuz rockets flying to the ISS again soon!

Around the Solar System

The Japanese probe in orbit of Venus, Akatsuki, has made observations of a massive standing wave in the planet’s atmosphere.

NASA exploration year in review (press release)

NASA space technology year in review (press release)

NASA commercial crew year in review (press release)

Best NASA photos of 2016 (via Universe Today)

100 best space photos of 2016 (by Space.Com)

ESA’s 2016 year in review video

ESA’s 2017 preview video

Space industry in 2016 (by Spaceflight Insider)

ISS ops in 2016 (by Spaceflight Insider)

The year in rocket launches, part 1 (by Parabolic Arc)

The year in rocket launches, part 2 (by parabolic Arc)

Down To Earth

American hero and original Mercury astronaut John Glenn died on December 8th.

Former space shuttle astronaut, climate scientist, and director at Goddard Space Flight Center, died on December 23rd. He was a fierce advocate of climate science. This open letter he wrote after his cancer diagnosis is worth a read.

Virgin Galactic conducted another SpaceShipTwo glide flight on December 22, the second of the month.

Actor Ryan Gosling is to play Neil Armstrong in a new biopic to be filmed next year.

In Orbit

It’s been a busy month since my last post on December 4th, with 12 more successful orbital rocket launches (check out this post from Parabolic Arc for 2016 launch statistics).

• A European Vega rocket launched on December 5th placed a Turkish military satellite in orbit
• An Indian rocket launched on December 7th placed an Earth observing satellite in orbit
• A Delta IV rocket launched on December 7th placed a U.S. Air Force satellite in orbit
• A Japanese H-IIB launched on December 9th carried an ISS logistics cargo craft as well as a slew of small secondary payloads
• A Chinese rocket launched on December 10th placed a weather satellite in orbit
• An Orbital Sciences Pegasus rocket launched on December 15th (air launched from under an airplane wing) placed 8 new hurricane observing satellites in orbit
• An Atlas V rocket launched on December 18th placed a commercial communications satellite in orbit
• A Japanese Epsilon rocket launched on December 20th placed a Van Allen radiation belt research probe in orbit
• Another Chinese rocket launched on December 21st placed two Earth-observing satellites in orbit
• A European Ariane 5 rocket launched on December 21st placed both a Brazilian and Japanese communications satellite in orbit
• Another Chinese rocket launched on December 28th placed two satellites in orbit, but reportedly the wrong one
• Another Chinese rocket launched on January 5th placed a telecommunications satellite in orbit

The Japanese HTV cargo craft which launched in early December was successfully captured by the on-orbit ISS crew on December 12th.

Around the Solar System

There are some problems at Mars:

The Curiosity rover has a problem with its scientific drill. Flight controllers are troubleshooting.

The Mars Odyssey orbiter went into safe mode last week. It is expected that it will be recovered.

Down to Earth

Jack Garman, who worked a support console for Apollo guidance and navigation, passed away on September 20th, at 72 years old. Garman is best known as being instrumental in the calls to proceed with landing on Apollo 11 when some guidance computer program alarms showed up at just 3,000 feet above the surface. Here’s the raw audio from that part of the landing which is always worth listening to again. Great example of flight control in action.

Neil Degrasse Tyson’s podcast StarTalk had a special episode hosted by astronaut Mike Massimino with guest interviewees, flight directors Royce Renfrew and Emily Nelson. Check it out here!

Musician and singer Grace Potter collaborated with NASA on a music video for her song Look What We’ve Become. It was filmed completely at NASA’s Johnson Space Center! Check it out below.

One of the biggest national stories of the last week was Hurricane Matthew, which came close to dolling out a devastating blow to the East coast of Florida. Fortunately, the most dangerous winds stayed offshore as it passed the Kennedy Space Center, resulting in some damage but nothing too serious.

In the battle of the New Space giants, there were two big stories in recent weeks. First, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had his much anticipated presentation at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Mexico. the speech presented a high level framework of his plans to visit Mars. Most of the details were focused on the rocket design and less on how humans would survive and thrive on Mars. Below is the full length video, but Ars Technica had a good analysis if you don’t want to watch all of it. Another good take on it from Phil Plait here.

If you are interested in just the 4-minute animation from SpaceX showing their imagined Mars mission architecture, jump to the second video below.

The other big story was Blue Origin’s successful in-flight abort test of their New Shepard rocket (personally, I am not sure if they have a separate name for the capsule or if New Shepard refers to the whole system. It was a pretty exciting launch and test. Jump to 51 minutes in the webcast replay below to watch!

In Orbit

Lots of good news regarding the ISS flight manifest. The next Cygnus cargo freighter, launching from Virginia for the first time in 2 years on Orbital ATK’s redesigned Antares rocket, should fly next Thursday, the 13th.

The following week, the next crew should launch on their repaired Soyuz craft. That launch is scheduled for Wednesday, the 19th.

There were two rocket launches since my last post. First, an Indian GSLV rocket launched a slew of satellites into orbit, including some from Algeria, USA, Canada, and India. Second, an ESA Ariane 5 rocket launched two communications satellites to a geosynchronous orbit on the 5th.

Around the Solar System

Check out this “video” (really an animated gif made from stills) of the Curiosity rover drilling on Mars! The rover has just officially entered its next two-year mission extension.

Curiosity drilling at target site "Quela" as the Sun goes down, Sol 1464 #MSL pic.twitter.com/fGfwjsX7dH

— Jason Major (@JPMajor) September 19, 2016

NASA announced new findings from the Hubble Space Telescope that reinforce the conclusion that not only does Europa have a subsurface ocean of liquid water, but that the water regularly exits the moon in powerful plumes (which could be theoretically sampled by a visiting probe).

In even more exciting planetary science news, NASA announced new analysis of data from the MESSENGER spacecraft (which finished its Mercury orbital mission last year). By analyzing imagery from the last part of MESSENGER’s mission, when it was at a lower altitude, scientists have concluded that the surface shows signs of recent contraction, meaning that Mercury is tectonically active.

ESA’s Rosetta mission ended on September 30th with a controlled descent into comet 67P/Churyumov/Gerasimenko.

Down to Earth

In late June, Orbital ATK test fired the second quality test solid rocket booster for SLS development:

Mike Suffredini, former ISS Program Manager, is now working for contractor SGT, Inc. and announced at a recent NewSpace conference his intentions to develop a commercial space station.

NASA and Apple announced a collaboration to create music inspired by the Juno mission.

A team of astronauts from five different nations completed a multi-night caving expedition in the Sardinia region of Italy. The project is run by ESA and is an spaceflight analog but also has real exploration objectives.

In Orbit

Here are all the rocket launches since the last post on June 24th:

• June 25 – A Chinese Long March 7 rocket debuted from a new launch pad on Hainan Island. The rocket was carrying a demonstration for a future manned capsule design.
• June 29 – Another Chinese rocket launched, this one with less information available about the payload.
• July 7 – A Soyuz rocket launched from Kazakhstan carrying three crew members to the ISS.

The Soyuz crew successfully docked to the ISS on Friday night after 2 days in orbit.

Around the Solar System

NASA’s Juno probe arrived in Jupiter orbit last Monday, July 4th.

Several NASA missions received their official mission extensions. New Horizons was officially approved to continue its mission to the 2019 rendezvous with 2014 MU69 in the Kuiper Belt (we have 3 years to come up with a better name). The Dawn mission at Ceres was extended but it will stay in orbit there instead of moving on to another asteroid.

The Curiosity rover on Mars briefly went into safe mode but has since been recovered.

Down to Earth

Buzz Aldrin has published a new book titled “No Dream is Too High.”

United Launch Alliance and Bigelow Aerospace have announced a new partnership. Bigelow will launch their enormous BA-330 expandable module on a ULA Atlas rocket.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 recovered first stage returned to port last week after landing on a droneship the week before. Check out the pictures.

An online auction for a camera lens used on the moon during Apollo 15 is now open.

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who was in the news last year for pledging millions of dollars to SETI, has announced his plan for a robotic interestellar mission called Breakthrough Starshot.

The last external tank from the Space Shuttle program left Michoud in Louisiana last week on an ocean voyage to California, where it will become a part of the display with Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Rollin' on a river! Space shuttle external tank 94 leaves #NASAMichoud headed for @casciencecenter. #ETcomeshome pic.twitter.com/CekpXuLtmj

— NASA Marshall News (@NASA_Marshall) April 12, 2016

Orbital ATK and Intelsat have struck a deal that may lead to the first commercial use of “robotic satellite servicing”.

In Orbit

NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope unexpected entered emergency mode last week, but has since been successfully recovered. The cause of the event is still being investigated.

The new Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was installed on the Node 3 module of ISS on Saturday. Here is a time-lapse of it being moved from the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft via the robotic arm.

It’s been a while since I have shared links to some of my favorite tweets from ISS here. The three US astronauts onboard have been furiously posting beautiful pictures of Earth pretty much every day. Here are just a few recent ones from just the past couple of days.

#Crater in #Africa. @Space_Station #EarthArt pic.twitter.com/OmgLukdF0D

— Tim Kopra (@astro_tim) April 13, 2016

#Icebergs on a lake in the #Himalayas. @Space_Station #Explore pic.twitter.com/Gd2rvsMVtd

— Tim Kopra (@astro_tim) April 15, 2016

Beautiful pass today over the border mountains of #Russia, #Mongolia & #Kazakhstan. pic.twitter.com/Pm7IZ6LWvt

— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) April 15, 2016

2 beautiful mountain ranges: #Andes (looking north) & #Himalayas (looking east) https://t.co/JHJJKlMSIM pic.twitter.com/tq7UYSbJIQ

— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) April 16, 2016

Suez Canal entrance on Med. pic.twitter.com/pjKjZw7wJq

— Jeff Williams (@Astro_Jeff) April 16, 2016

Our Nation's Capitol @WashingtonDC from @Space_Station. @WhiteHouse @Smithsonian #CitiesFromSpace pic.twitter.com/F7JxTsjwAc

— Tim Kopra (@astro_tim) April 16, 2016

And here is a quick video from Jeff Williams showing us around the cupola and their cameras.

Let me show you this Cupola view, the window on the world! Plus how we take pictures up here.https://t.co/PIQZiCb7Tw

— Jeff Williams (@Astro_Jeff) April 13, 2016

Around the Solar System

This is pretty cool. An amateur astronomer captured a video of a fireball in Jupiter’s atmosphere, as a large asteroid or some other object slammed into the planet.

Obviously the huge news this week is the successful launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the return to flight of the Dragon capsule and a successful landing on the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS). See the “In Orbit” section for more details!

Down to Earth

Blue Origin achieved an impressive feat last week, flying the same suborbital New Shepard rocket for the third time since November.

Following a rocket anomaly in the launch of a Cygnus resupply craft last month the ULA Atlas V rocket is grounded.

Accomplished NASA astronaut, and current NASA science chief, John Grunsfeld, will be retiring.

Roscosmos is selling the perennially financially troubled venture Sea Launch.

In Orbit

There have been 4 orbital launches since my last blog update on March 27. Here they are in chronological order: China launched a single Beidou navigation satellite on March 29, Russia launched a Progress resupply craft from Baikonaur on March 31, China launched a microgravity science payload on April 6, and of course SpaceX launched a Dragon resupply capsule on April 8.

The flawless Falcon 9 ascent and capsule deploy was overshadowed by SpaceX achieving the impressive feat of recovering the rocket’s first stage on the ASDS, out in the Atlantic Ocean. This video says it all.

This delivery of cargo aboard Dragon will wrap up a very busy time period aboard ISS. Starting with the Soyuz undocking at the beginning of March, which brought Scott Kelly home and started Expedition 47, there have been 6 different visiting vehicle events, with Dragon being the third cargo resupply in 2 weeks.

One of the payloads aboard Dragon that everyone is excited about is the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM. Here is a simple infographic about BEAM (via Parabolic Arc).

Around the Solar System

Meanwhile, on Mars, NASA’s rovers are quietly doing science. Check out this panorama from Curiosity. On the other side of the planet, Opportunity has been exploring Marathon Valley and braving slopes above 30 degrees tilt in the name of science.

Down to Earth

NASA’s Dawn mission was awarded the prestigious Collier Trophy.

Former NASA astronaut Janet Kavandi is the new director of Glenn Research Center in Ohio.

WIRED sent a guy to spend a day at JSC learning what it’s like to be an astronaut. The short video is fun and probably fairly informative for non-space geeks.

In Orbit

Lots of launch activity in the past two weeks. Of the five total launches, I’ll get the two less interesting ones out of the way first: on March 13, a Russian Earth observation mission launched from Baikonaur and then on March 24, a Russian military mission launched from Plesetsk. Both were on Soyuz rockets.

The other three launches are much more interesting. First, on March 14 the much anticipated ExoMars mission launched on a Proton rocket from Baikonaur. The Mars exploration mission is currently safely in solar orbit on its way to an October rendezvous.

On March 18, another Soyuz rocket launched from Baikonaur, but this time carrying 3 people. Aleksey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka, and Jeff Williams had an uneventful launch, rendezvous, and docking with the ISS. Or at least, as uneventful as those sorts of things go!

Lastly, an Atlas V rocket launched from Florida on March 23 carrying a Cygnus cargo freighter. Cygnus, named the S.S. Rick Husband by Orbital ATK, arrived (also uneventfully) at ISS on Saturday morning.

SS Rick Husband getting into position for capture. Now attached to #ISS – hatch opening tomorrow! @Space_Station pic.twitter.com/7dKbPcYBZE

— Tim Kopra (@astro_tim) March 26, 2016

#Exp47 with photo of #Cygnus namesake, Rick Husband. Honored to be part of its mission. @Space_Station @OrbitalATK pic.twitter.com/jzBeIz1lO7

— Tim Kopra (@astro_tim) March 27, 2016

Unfortunately, it sounds like Japan’s Astro-H X-ray observatory may have been lost only weeks after it launched in February.

Around the Solar System

Check out this picture of the tallest mountains on Saturn’s moon Titan.

Here’s some awesome new close-up imagery of the “bright spots” on Ceres.

Newly released analysis of New Horizons data indicates that Pluto may have had periods of high atmospheric pressure in the past, which allowed liquid nitrogen to flow in rivers on its surface.

Down To Earth

Two space shuttle astronauts, Brian Duffy and Scott Parazynski, were recently inducted into the astronaut hall of fame.

Apollo astronaut and moonwalker, Edgar Mitchell, died at the age of 85.

Former President George H.W. Bush (Bush 41) visited Johnson Space Center and talked to the ISS astronauts from the Mission Control Center.

All of the segments of the primary mirror to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have been assembled!

The Laser Interferometer Gravity-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has detected “gravitational waves”, which is what it was designed to do. This is a basically a new way to see the universe – like the first time an X-Ray observatory was put into space and returned data. Not only that, it validates parts of Einstein’s theories. Here are some brief articles from Phil Plait and Sean Carroll, who explain it well.

Check out this amazing zero-gravity music video by Ok Go, which doesn’t use any digital effects. Wow!

Curators at the Smithsonian recently did a 3D scan of the inside of the Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia, and found previously unknown handwritten notes on the walls.

Astronaut Kevin Ford has retired from NASA.

The new SpaceX “transporter erector” at pad 39A in Florida is pretty cool looking.

In Orbit

A number of rocket launches since my last post in late January: a Chinese rocket launched one of their navigation satellites (Beidou), a ULA Atlas V launched a GPS satellite, a Russian Soyuz rocket launched one of their navigation satellites (GLONASS), a ULA Delta IV launched a secret USA reconnaissance office payload, and lastly North Korea launched something.

This brings the worldwide launch cadence for the year up to 10 so far, or almost 2 per week. We are still waiting for the first SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of the year, which should be before March.

Veteran cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Yuri Malenchenko conducted a successful spacewalk on the Russian Segment of the ISS.

Around the Solar System

The European Space Agency has announced that they are no longer attempting to send commands to the lost Philae lander, which has not transmitted from the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in months.

China has released some new photos of the moon from it’s Yutu rover mission (the rover died some time ago).

Down To Earth

The European Space Agency published a thought-provoking video about the future of lunar exploration.

Here is some interesting PR from the aspiring asteroid mining company Planetary Resources. At the Consumer Electronics Show they revealed a prototype that they 3D printed from a meteorite.

SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 launch will be from Vandenberg in California on January 17th. The rocket will be carrying the NOAA’s Jason-3 satellite. In addition, SpaceX will attempt to recover the first stage on their autonomous drone ship.

The United States Postal Service will issue new stamps with images of the New Horizons spacecraft and Pluto.

Speaking of New Horizons, that NASA team has won the annual Goddard Memorial Trophy.

NASA has officially organized a new Planetary Defense Coordination Office for overall management of projects for detection and characterization of Near Earth Objects (NEOs).

In Orbit

Next Friday “the Tims” (astronauts Tim Peake and Tim Kopra) will get to do a spacewalk.

Around the Solar System

On Mars, the Curiosity rover has driven right up to a 13 foot tall sand dune and is sending us some pretty cool pictures.

Also on Mars, the long-lived Opportunity rover is celebrating 12 Earth-years on the surface.