The first Earthrise picture taken from the Moon, 46 years ago today.
The first Earthrise picture taken from the Moon, 46 years ago today.
Tag: spaceflight
The European cargo ship docked at ISS today successfully fired its engines to raise the station’s orbit.
The European cargo ship docked at ISS today successfully fired its engines and raised the station’s orbit to 260 miles.
This is in contrast to a previous attempt on August 15, which cut off prematurely.
Curiosity has made its first test drive, moving about fifteen feet.
Curiosity has made its first test drive, moving about fifteen feet.
NASA scientists in a battle with astronomers over who gets to name things on Vesta and Mars.
A rose by any other name: NASA scientists are in a battle with astronomers over who gets to name things on Vesta and Mars.
This is not a new problem. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has maintained its power over naming everything in space since the 1960s, even though the IAU has sometimes ignored the wishes of the actual discoverers and explorers and given names to things that no one likes. For example, even though the Apollo 8 astronauts wanted to give certain unnamed features on the Moon specific names, the IAU refused to accept their choices, even though those astronauts were the first human beings to reach another world and see these features up close.
Eventually, the spacefarers of the future are going to tell the IAU where to go. And that will begin to happen when those spacefarers simply refuse to use the names the IAU assigns.
What do you do with a giant space station when its lifespan is over?
What do you do with a giant space station when its lifespan is over?
The article notes that no date has been set for deorbit, and that it likely will not happen before 2028. The article also includes information about some of medical and engineering problems of long term weightlessness that have been discovered on ISS, and how engineers have attempted to address them.
Unfortunately, some of these problems, such as the recently discovered vision problems, remain unsolved. It is a shame that while Russia wants to do multi-year missions on the station to study these issues, NASA continues to resist.
Getting ready for the first Antares launch in October at Wallops Island.
The competition heats up: Getting ready for the first Antares launch in October at Wallops Island.
One of Curiosity’s two wind sensors has been found to be damaged and is inoperable.
One of Curiosity’s two wind sensors was apparently damaged in landing and is inoperable.
The Rems team first noticed there was something wrong when readings from the side-facing boom were being returned saturated at high and low values. Further investigation suggested small wires exposed on the sensor circuits were open, probably severed. It is permanent damage. No-one can say for sure how this happened, but engineers are working on the theory that grit thrown on to the rover by the descent crane’s exhaust plume cut the small wires. The wind sensor on the forward-facing mini-boom is unaffected. With just the one sensor, it makes it difficult to fully understand wind behaviour.
Monday’s successful spacewalk by two Russian astronauts preps ISS for the arrival of a new Russian module.
Monday’s successful spacewalk by two Russian astronauts has prepared ISS for the arrival of a new Russian module.
I should have posted a link about this spacewalk earlier. What is important however is that the Russians continue to move forward, though slowly. And they continue to come up with simple solutions to problems, such as the extra layer of shielding for the living quarters on ISS, installed during this spacewalk.
An $8,000 personal satellite.
Curiosity flexed its robot arm today for the first time.
The invader prepares its attack: For the first time today Curiosity flexed its robot arm.
NASA has announced its next planetary mission, a lander to Mars that will drill down thirty feet into the planet’s surface
NASA has announced its next planetary mission, a lander to Mars that will drill down thirty feet into the planet’s surface.
Though exciting in its own right, this mission is far less ambitious than the two missions which competed against it, a boat that would have floated on the lakes of Titan and a probe that would have bounced repeatedly off the surface of a comet. I suspect the reason this mission was chosen is the tight budgets at NASA, combined with Curiosity’s success which makes it politically advantageous to approve another Mars mission. As the NASA press release emphasized,
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Scaled Composites has posted the results of its latest test firing of the rocket motor for SpaceShipTwo.
The competition heats up: Scaled Composites has posted the results of its latest test firing of the rocket motor for SpaceShipTwo.
Though the test is dated August 9, more than a week ago, I expect the number of engine tests to go up in the coming months as the company works toward the first powered flights of SpaceShipTwo.