The first test flight of Russia’s new Angara rocket is now tentatively scheduled for July 9.
The story confirms that the problem was a faulty valve, which it appears they can replace at the spaceport, rather than return the rocket to the manufacturer. The story also had this line, which tells us that Russia is still struggling with quality control problems: “The valve’s malfunctioning was a result of sloppy assembly.”
Another environmental claim turns out to be vastly exaggerated: The scientist who claimed that islands of plastic bags were filling the oceans has found that his claim was bogus.
The scientist whose findings environmentalists used to shame us into bringing our own reusable bags to the grocery store now says that his estimate of one million tons of plastic floating in the ocean may have been off by a factor of perhaps 143. His latest estimate ranges from 7,000 to 35,000 tons, and even most of that has biodegraded into granules. …
Also doubtful: The environmentalist claim that 1.5 million marine animals choke to death each year on plastic bags that ran away from home for a life at sea. They’ve revised their estimates downward to 6.6 percent of that, but even the new figure has no empirical support.
But remember, Barack Obama says the science is settled, and that anyone who questions him or expresses any doubt is the equivalent of a Holocaust denier.
According to the Russian Interfax news agency, a piece of space junk has hit a coolant radiator on the U.S. portion of ISS.
The source says that no coolant has escaped from the system and that NASA engineers are analyzing images to assess the damage.
Readers should be aware that I have tried without success to find the NASA website the story claims is the source for this information. Moreover, this story is reported nowhere in the U.S. press, and it is strange for a NASA website to report something like this and it not be quickly picked up by the U.S. press.
Thus, I am not entirely convinced yet that this story is accurate.
Update: a commenter below has provided this link to a subsequent post at nasaspaceflight about the impact.
Turning lemons into lemonade: The sinkhole that swallowed eight prized cars at the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky in February has become such an attraction that the museum intends to preserve it.
Attendance was up nearly 60 percent from March to the start of this week, compared to the year-ago period, museum officials said. Sign-ups for museum memberships are up sharply, as are merchandise and cafe sales at the museum. The museum sells sinkhole-related shirts, post cards and prints.
Museum board members considered three options for the sinkhole: fill it in, preserve the entire sinkhole or keep a portion of it. They opted to maintain about half the 40-foot-wide, 60-foot-deep sinkhole, Strode said. There’s a “strong probability” that one or two of the damaged cars will be put back in the hole, he said.
The private team resurrecting the 1970s space probe ISEE-3 successfully fired its thrusters for the first time since 1987.
It took several attempts and days to perform the roll maneuver because ISEE-3 was not responding to test commands. But this time, controllers got in touch. They increased the roll rate from 19.16 revolutions per minute to 19.76 RPM, putting it within mission specifications for trajectory corrections.
The spacecraft is now prepped for the big burn that will change its trajectory.
The competition heats up: Europe’s experimental space plane begins shake tests in preparation for a November test flight.
They are testing to see if it can withstand the vibrations during launch.
Combining images from a host of space and ground-based telescopes, astronomers have created a spectacular image of the galaxy M106.
This galactic fireworks display is taking place in NGC 4258 (also known as M106), a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way. This galaxy is famous, however, for something that our Galaxy doesn’t have – two extra spiral arms that glow in X-ray, optical, and radio light. These features, or anomalous arms, are not aligned with the plane of the galaxy, but instead intersect with it.
The anomalous arms are seen in this new composite image of NGC 4258, where X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory are blue, radio data from the NSF’s Karl Jansky Very Large Array are purple, optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are yellow and blue, and infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope are red.
A new study of these anomalous arms made with Spitzer shows that shock waves, similar to sonic booms from supersonic planes, are heating large amounts of gas – equivalent to about 10 million Suns. What is generating these shock waves? Radio data shows that the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4258 is producing powerful jets of high-energy particles. Researchers thinkthat these jets strike the disk of the galaxy and generate shock waves. These shock waves, in turn, heat some of the gas – composed mainly of hydrogen molecules – to thousands of degrees.
The astronomers also used the Herschel Space Observatory to confirm the data from Spitzer.
Want to have some fun? An amusement park in Northern Wales is about to open a gigantic underground trampoline ride to the public..
Battle Below is located deep within a 100 ft (30.5 m) deep and 60 ft (18.3 m) wide disused mine. The new site features three large trampolines stretching across the cave-like mine walls and are positioned at varying heights. The trampolines are linked together by 60 ft (18.3 m) slides and a spiraling staircase. Adding to the atmosphere, multi-colored LED lights have been installed throughout the mine, which project onto the walls of the cavern.
It took over a kilometer of nett and 4,500 man hours to complete the underground trampolines, which can accommodate 100 bouncing visitors at a time. Patrons are required to wear protective gear, including overalls and a helmet before gaining access to the site via an old mining train. They’re also encouraged to bounce as high as they dare, potentially reaching a maximum height of 80 ft (24 m).
Bounce Below opens on July 4, with tickets starting from £15 (about US$25) per person.
A profile of the designer of China’s Yutu lunar rover.
The details about Jia Yang’s life as well as some of the challenges he faced building the rover and other spacecraft for China is most interesting. I also suspect that if we pay close attention we will see his name pop up again in connection with future missions.
Orbital Sciences has set July 11 as the launch date for its next Cygnus cargo mission to ISS.
They have concluded their inspection of the refurbished Russian engines on the Antares rocket and are satisfied it does not have the problems that caused another engine to blow up during tests.
NASA and Boeing today signed a $2.8 billion contract for Boeing to build the core stage of the SLS rocket
Scheduled for its initial test flight in 2017, the SLS is designed to be flexible and evolvable to meet a variety of crew and cargo mission needs. The initial flight-test configuration will provide a 77-ton capacity, and the final evolved two-stage configuration will provide a lift capability of more than 143 tons.
It would be nice for the U.S. to have this heavy-lift rocket, but I fully expect the funds to run out immediately after it makes its inaugural flight, despite the wonderful pork it provides to so many Congressional districts. It just costs too much per launch.
Running from competition: The Russian space agency Roskosmos has decided not to spend the money necessary to buy Sea Launch and make it part of its consolidated United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC).
Part of the reason the Russians are abandoning Sea Launch is that the rocket the ocean-going platform uses is the Ukrainian-built Zenit rocket, and Russia wants URSC to a wholly Russian operation. Rather than partner with Ukraine for profit, they will let the business die.
