The disassembly and decommissioning of the space shuttle Discovery has started.
Japan’s unmanned freighter undocked from ISS today.
The X-37B space plane has been spotted again by amateurs.
More on the space war over NASA from Jeff Foust of The Space Review. Also read this Aviation Week article.
Overall, it is still a mess, with much of the money allocated to NASA a complete waste that will not get us into space.
An critique of NASA: No vision equals no innovation.
That NASA (and our government) lacks vision is not necessarily a bad thing. For the first time in decades, this is leaving room for new and independent companies to move in and fill the vacuum left by NASA. In the end, I think we will be far better off.
The Russians have set the new date, April 5, for next manned Soyuz launch to ISS.
All systems go! Dawn did a camera and instrument checkout last week, in preparation for its summertime arrival at the asteroid Vesta.
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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The mess from the NASA space war spreads: Three European space science missions are now on their own after the U.S. the space agency pulls funding.
Treasures from the Soviet Union’s space history.
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 X-37B – what its first two flights have been about.
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.
Sergei Korolev: the rocket genius behind Yuri Gagarin.
The 8.9 earthquake has shut down the Japanese space station mission control center, forcing NASA to take over monitoring Japanese ISS modules.
Virgin Galactic surpassed $10 million in space tourism sales in 2010.
Putting ISS to use. Key quote:
Under consideration is using the entire station and its six-person crew as an analog for a deep-space human exploration vehicle en route to Mars. An internal team is studying the feasibility and value of such an exercise in the summer of 2012. “We might start with a small window, like a 30-day window, with actual time delays with what we’d expect with a Martian communications system,” Gerstenmaier says. “We may freeze our consumables on station, in the sense of saying that we’ve started our voyage to Mars, and see how well we do in our predictions.”
A Russian military satellite nearly collided with a Korean weather satellite earlier this week.
An evening pause:I had played this video as an evening pause back in November, when I thought the last mission of the space shuttle Discovery would be launched. Now that it has finally landed, completing its final mission, I think worthwhile to once again go back in time and watch a film of the shuttle’s maiden flight, launched August 30, 1984, narrated by the astronauts themselves. Note that the female astronaut on this flight is Judith Resnik, who died a little over a year and a half later in the Challenger accident.
Discovery has landed safely, for the last time.
