Some results from the HTV-2 hypersonic flight: the glider flew successfully for about three minutes at 20 times the speed of sound.
Fixed the stupid error. The speed of SOUND is of course correct. Sorry for the lapse in thought.
The Pioneer anomaly is fading.
The analysis shows that the anomaly is not constant, as researchers had believed, but is decreasing with time. The finding points toward a conventional explanation of the phenomenon, most likely asymmetric radiation of heat, and against some of the more exotic proposals.
Another rocket launch failure today, this time by the Chinese.
The Titan Mare Explorer: A nautical mission to an alien sea.
If [NASA] green-lights the mission, the capsule will lift off in 2016. By 2023, TiME will be about 800 million miles away in Titan’s north-polar region, home to its biggest lakes and seas. The capsule will take photographs, collect meteorological data, measure depth, and analyze samples. TiME will have no means of propulsion once it is on Titan, so it will float, carried by breezes across the sea’s surface. Then, by the mid-2020s, it will enter a decade-long winter of darkness as the moon’s orbit takes it to the dark side of Saturn, away from the sun and communication. It won’t have a line of sight to Earth to beam back more data until 2035.
American manned space: dependent on the Russians in more ways than you think.
As commentators from around the country gnash their teeth at U.S. dependence upon Russia to move cargo and astronauts to the mostly U.S. built/funded International Space Station (ISS), they’ve missed the bigger boat: With one exception, all the commercial spaceflight offerings currently in the works have Soviet or Russian engines as a key part of the rockets involved.
According to Russian space officials today, the next Soyuz tourist flight to ISS will be in 2014.
The article above contradicts yesterday’s story where the head of the Russian space agency suggested that Russia is going to shift its focus from manned space. I suspect both stories reflect an underlying political battle going on within the Russian government.
Saving a failed orbiting satellite with engineering.
Remarks by the head of the Russian space agency on Thursday suggested Russia is going to shift its space effort away from manned space.
Here are some additional stories describing today’s test flight of the Hypersonic Test Vehicle.
I have several questions, and no answers:
Contact was quickly lost today soon after a hypersonic glider was released by its rocket launcher during a test flight. More here.
Virgin Galactic’s suborbital shuttle: Sydney to London in 4 hours.
I’ve been told that there are engineering reasons why SpaceShipTwo could not make this flight. Nonetheless, the possibility is quite alluring.
