Another successful Proton rocket launch took place today in Russia, putting a Russian communications satellite into orbit.
This is the fourth successful Proton launch since July’s spectacular failure, suggesting that the Russians have gotten the rocket’s manufacturing process back on track.
The competition heats up: The Russians have delayed the first launch of a new Soyuz rocket for at least a week.
No reason for the delay was announced. The rocket is an entirely new design, with an upper stage expected to cost less to make.
Today’s spacewalk on ISS is complete with the successful installation of a replacement coolant pump.
The installation means that a third spacewalk to finish the job is no longer needed.
Every image taken during the Apollo program is now available online.
I especially like this image, taken by Frank Borman, seconds before Bill Anders took the more famous version, which you will note is oriented here correctly, as Anders took it, with the horizon vertical.
The companies building manned spacecraft for the United States all appear to be on track.
The report gives a nice overview of the recent achievements of all three companies, and suggests that the U.S. will once again have a manned spacecraft capability before the decade has ended coming from more than one design.
Mars Express will do an extremely close flyby of the martian moon Phobos on December 29.
Late this month, ESA’s Mars Express will make the closest flyby yet of the Red Planet’s largest moon Phobos, skimming past at only 45 km [28 miles] above its surface. The flyby on 29 December will be so close and fast that Mars Express will not be able to take any images, but instead it will yield the most accurate details yet of the moon’s gravitational field and, in turn, provide new details of its internal structure.
China’s rover is about to go to sleep for the long lunar night.
According to Wu Fenglei of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, the lander will “go to sleep” at about 7 a.m. on Christmas Day and the moon rover, Jade Rabbit, will fall asleep at about 1 a.m. on Boxing Day. The forthcoming lunar night, expected to begin on Dec. 26, will last for about two weeks, experts with the center estimated. During their “sleep”, both lander and rover will have to tolerate minus 180 degrees Celsius. Scientists tested the lander early Tuesday to ensure it can stand the temperature drop. Both lander and rover are stable, said Wu, adding they have completed a series of scientific tasks in the past two days.
This report states the rover landed in Sinus Iridum, the original announced landing site, contradicting other reports that said the lander came down in Mare Imbrium.
This news report, confirmed by no other source, claims that the spacewalk this week was cut short because of water in the astronauts’ spacesuits.
I report this story but am very puzzled. If a water leak was the cause of the shortened spacewalks, I would have expected others to report that fact as well. No one has, however. (See this nasaspaceflight.com article, for example, which outlines the entire engineering situation quite thoroughly but says “both suits performed well during the EVA.”) Moreover, the ABC particular story above is written by someone who is not a space reporter, and contains some incongruities that reflect that, making me even more skeptical.
Yesterday’s spacewalk on ISS, though successful, was cut short because of spacesuit discomfort issues unrelated to the earlier water leak problems.
No story on the spacewalk is entirely clear on the issues. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio was cold, but it seems he also had other problems that have not been outlined clearly. Interestingly he was not using the spacesuit that flooded in July. Michael Hopkins was using that suit and apparently had no problems.
In order to resize the spare suit on the station for Mastracchio they have delayed the next spacesuit for one day.
Today’s spacewalk on ISS to replace a coolant pump is ahead of schedule.
The link gives live updates.
Update: the spacewalk is over and a complete success, with no problems.
It seems Curiosity’s wheels are wearing out faster than expected and engineers want to know why.
The increasedwear recently appears to be because the rover was traveling over rougher terrain. Nonetheless, JPL engineers are going to monitor the rover’s travel and wheel damage more closely in order to gauge that wear better for future travel.
