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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:

Posted in astronauts, Friday Links, History, Orbital ATK, politics, Pop Space, Proton, Rockets, Russia, SpaceX, UAE | No Comments »

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.

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:

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

Posted in Atlas V, Cassini, China, ESA, Falcon 9, Friday Links, India, NASA, Pop Space, PSLV, Rockets, SpaceX, ULA | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Mattell launched a new line of “Inspiring Women” Barbie dolls. The release includes a doll of NASA’s Katherine Johnson, made famous by the movie Hidden Figures.

JPL posted a 360-video from inside the InSight lander test lab (this is the next mission to Mars launching in May).

Westworld director Jonah Nola showed the below video during a SXSW panel this weekend.

National Geographic’s March issue features NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson on the cover and an article by Nadia Drake which profiles a handful of other astronauts.

In Orbit

Two rocket launches since my last post a week ago:

  • March 6 – SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying two satellites for commercial companies.
  • March 9 – Arianespace launched a Soyuz rocket from Kourou carrying three communications satellites for O3b.

There has been a lot of talk lately of China’s defunct Tiangong-1 space station, and it’s imminent uncontrolled plunge back to Earth. Predictions are for early April.

Around the Solar System

NASA released some new imagery data and science results from the Juno probe in orbit of Jupiter. Some of the intriguing mysteries uncovered include the strange polar cyclones and the 3,000 kilometer deep wind patters. Phil Plait has an excellent summary at his blog.

Out There

Another asteroid on an interstellar hyperbolic orbit has been discovered. This object is likely from the Oort cloud, which makes it different than ‘Omuamua, which is believed to have originated in interstellar space.

Posted in China, ESA, Falcon 9, Friday Links, InSight, JPL, Juno, Jupiter, NASA, Pop Space, Rockets, SpaceX | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Andy Weir, author of the smash hit The Martian released his second novel, Artemis.

Sierra Nevada released video of last week’s successful glide flight of their Dream Chaser space plan:

A long-lost Omega astronaut watch from the Apollo era has been recovered and returned to the Smithsonian.

In Orbit

The Cygnus cargo freighter that launched last week, arrived at the ISS successfully on November 14.

Two rocket launches last week:

Around the Solar System

A new study in Nature analyzes Pluto’s hazy atmosphere and offers an explanation for the planet being colder than expected ( minus 300 deg F instead of minus 280 deg F).

Out There

A newly discovered exoplanet, Ross 128 b, is only 11 light years away and could be in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star it orbits.

Posted in Apollo, China, Extrasolar planets, Friday Links, History, ISS, NASA, New Horizons, Orbital Sciences, Planetary science, Pluto, Pop Space, Rockets, Sierra Nevada, ULA | No Comments »

Weekly Links

Down to Earth

Skylab and Space Shuttle astronaut Paul Weitz has died at 85 years old.

The 2018 US Olympic Snowboard team will wear uniforms inspired by NASA spacesuits.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to invest $1 billion dollars in Virgin Galactic.

In Orbit

In rocket news, there were only two orbital launches since my last post on October 21:

Around the Solar Systems

NASA’s robotic probe Dawn has received an official mission extension to stay in orbit around the asteroid Ceres.

Out There

Astronomers at an observatory in Chile have discovered an unusual exoplanet orbiting a dwarf star. The planet is larger than Jupiter and is 25% the size of its host star, the highest known planet-to-star ratio yet discovered.

The Pan-STARRS-1 observatory in Hawaii detected a small rocky body hurtling into our solar system from interstellar space. The asteroid (or should it be called something else?) poses no risk to Earth. Follow the link for a cool animation of its orbit.

Posted in astronauts, astronomy, Extrasolar planets, Friday Links, NASA, New Space, Orbital Sciences, Planetary science, Pop Space, Rockets, Space Shuttle, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic | 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

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

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.

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.

Posted in Apollo, astronauts, Friday Links, History, Japan, NASA, Planetary science, politics, Pop Space, Rockets, SpaceX, ULA, Uncategorized, Venus | No Comments »

2016 Link Dump

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)

Posted in astronomy, Astrophotography, China, ESA, ISS, NASA, Pop Space, Rockets, Russia | No Comments »
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