Tag: spaceflight

The European Space Agency is investigating the possibility that the Progress docking to ISS on April 26 might have damaged equipment needed by their ATV cargo ship.

9:10 am

The European Space Agency is investigating the possibility that the Progress docking to ISS on April 26 might have damaged equipment needed by their ATV cargo ship.

The damage, caused by the undeployed Progress antenna, appears to have involved a navigational aid needed for ATV-4 … the Laser Radar Reflector (LRR) target. The LRR is needed for the automatic docking of the European ATV during the last part of the rendezvous operations. If the damage is confirmed, the device, recently replaced during an EVA by the Russian crew due to contamination of the optical section, will need to be replaced again. In this event, the European cargo ship could potentially be delayed for several months. ATV-4, named Albert Einstein, has been already delayed from April to June because of a glitch in an avionics box.

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NASA revealed Tuesday that last April the Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope barely avoided a collision with an abandoned Russian satellite.

9:37 pm

NASA revealed Tuesday that last April the Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope barely avoided a collision with an abandoned Russian satellite.

Fermi mission scientists first learned of the space collision threat on March 29, 2012 when they received a notice that the space telescope and Cosmos 1805 would miss each other by just 700 feet (213.4 meters). The mission team monitored the situation over the next day and it became clear that the two spacecraft, traveling in different orbits, would zip through the same point in space within 30 milliseconds of one another, NASA officials said.

They used Fermi’s thrusters to shift its orbit enough so the two spacecraft missed each other by 6 miles.

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In a NASA contest, a nine-year-old has named asteroid 1999 RQ36 after the Egyptian god Bennu.

10:44 am

A rose by any other name: In a NASA contest, a nine-year-old has named asteroid 1999 RQ36 after the Egyptian god Bennu.

1999 RQ36, or Bennu, is an important asteroid for two reasons. First, NASA is sending an unmanned sample return mission to it in 2016. Second, some calculations suggest the asteroid has a 1 in a 1000 chance of hitting the Earth in 2182.

In other naming news, the private space company Uwingu has launched its “Adopt-a-Planet” campaign.

This open-ended campaign gives anyone in the public—worldwide—the opportunity to adopt exoplanets in astronomical databases via Uwingu’s web site at www.uwingu.com. Proceeds from the naming and voting will continue to help fuel new Uwingu grants to fund space exploration, research, and education.

As noted earlier, they are ignoring the IAU’s stuffy insistence that only the IAU can name things in space.

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In NASA’s new contract with Russia to launch astronauts to ISS Russia has raised the ticket price from $63 million to $70.6 million per seat.

1:23 pm

The competition heats up: In NASA’s new contract with Russia to launch astronauts to ISS, announced today, Russia has raised the ticket price from $63 million to $70.6 million per seat.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union the Russians have become very good capitalists indeed. Consider: the price the Russians were charging for a single ticket on Soyuz was about $33 million in 2004, when George Bush announced the planned retirement of the shuttle. Since then they have repeatedly jacked up the price, knowing that we have no where else to go.

In the end, these price increases are actually a good thing, as they will make it easier for the new American companies to undercut them while simultaneously making a bigger profit.

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Opportunity went into safe mode during the communications pause in April when the Sun was between Mars and the Earth.

8:29 am

Opportunity went into safe mode during the communications pause in April when the Sun was between Mars and the Earth.

Mission controllers for Opportunity, which landed on Mars in January 2004, first learned of the issue on Saturday (April 27). On that day, the rover got back in touch after a nearly three-week communication moratorium caused by an unfavorable planetary alignment called a Mars solar conjunction, in which Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the sun. The Opportunity rover apparently put itself into standby on April 22 after sensing a problem during a routine camera check, mission managers said.

It sounds like this is a recoverable problem and the rover will be back in operation momentarily. Stay tuned.

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