The Russians have set the new date, April 5, for next manned Soyuz launch to ISS.
Power has been restored at all six Fukushima reactors in Japan.
Overall, the situation appears completely under control, so much so that in a rational world it probably would be possible to put several of these reactors back in operation. The Reuters story above, however, is amusing to read in one sense, as it struggles mightily to make things sound worse than they are.
All systems go! Dawn did a camera and instrument checkout last week, in preparation for its summertime arrival at the asteroid Vesta.
Subsidies to the Ariane 5 rocket to keep it afloat.
Something is seriously wrong with any operation (like Ariane) that dominates the market and still loses money the past two years.
New Horizons has passed the orbit of Uranus on its way to Pluto.
The first death in space.
An evening pause: Forty-six years ago today Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. This Soviet-era film shows practically the entire event, using footage from two cameras. Unfortunately, I don’t speak Russian and it is not subtitled. I’d love it if someone out there could provide a translation.
Several things to note as you watch:
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Here’s some good news: The situation at the Fukushima nuclear power plant continues to stabilize.
The article has a lot to say about the panicky overreaction of much of the press and political class over this incident. For example:
In summary it appears more and more that health consequences from reactor damage will be extremely minimal even for workers at the site. It will now be a surprise if anyone who has not been inside the plant gates this week is affected by the situation at at all – apart from all the people worldwide who have been taking iodide pills or eating salt unnecessarily. There may also be measurable psychological health effects from the global media-driven hysteria surrounding the situation, of course.
This ain’t good: Japan has raised the nuclear alert level at its stricken nuclear power plants.
Then again, it appears that the dangers remain limited to a relatively small area, within 20 kilometers of the power plant.
You can’t make this stuff up! Iran is claiming it has built a working flying saucer.
After an almost seven year journey, Messenger has successfully entered orbit around Mercury. More here.
After years of travel, the probe Messenger finally goes into orbit around Mercury tonight.
Sour grapes: Satellite builders express contempt for MDA’s refueling plans for Intelsat orbiting satellites.
No surprise here. If Intelsat can extend the life of its satellites, than it won’t have to buy them as often from these builders, something the builders clearly don’t want.
Three astronauts return safely to Earth in Soyuz capsule.
The strange tale of the Lebanese space program.
The strange link between samurai swords and Japan’s nuclear reactors.
The X-37B – what its first two flights have been about.
Time to stop the nuke hysteria. Key quote:
It’s not bad enough that thousands of people may be dead from Japan’s earthquake and devastating tsunami. No, the media is instead obsessing over a nuclear reactor that has killed no one and probably never will.
Intelsat signs MDA to perform in-space refueling of its communications satellites.
The concept of refueling geosynchronous satellites has been lurking about the aerospace industry for years. According to this deal, we should see an actual mission in about five years.
Problems going up and going down: Not only are there issues with the Soyuz capsule that is scheduled to return to Earth on Wednesday, a problem in the communications system of the next Soyuz capsule has caused the Russians to delay its launch by at least one week.
The return of a crew from ISS on Wednesday via a new upgraded Soyuz capsule might have problems.
Check out this detailed engineering explanation of what has happened, is happening, and will happen at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. Key quote:
The point is that the nuclear fuel has now been cooled down. Because the chain reaction has been stopped a long time ago, there is only very little residual heat being produced now. The large amount of cooling water that has been used is sufficient to take up that heat. Because it is a lot of water, the core does not produce sufficient heat any more to produce any significant pressure. Also, boric acid has been added to the seawater. Boric acid is “liquid control rod”. Whatever decay is still going on, the Boron will capture the neutrons and further speed up the cooling down of the core.
Sergei Korolev: the rocket genius behind Yuri Gagarin.
More bad news: According to Japanese officials, a second nuclear meltdown is likely under way.
This ain’t good: A nuclear meltdown appears to have occurred at the quake-damaged Japanese power plant.
Japan to fill leaking nuke reactor with sea water.
The 8.9 earthquake has shut down the Japanese space station mission control center, forcing NASA to take over monitoring Japanese ISS modules.
NASA has concluded that it will cost an additional $30 million to fix the degradation problem on the James Webb Space Telescope’s scientific instruments.
