Space In General

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Voyager's project scientist, Ed Stone, has retired after 50 years in the role. He is the only person to hold that position, even while he was also director of the JPL from 1991 to 2001.

Meanwhile, Voyager 1 and 2 are still out there transmitting from well beyond the solar system's boundaries, though it takes over 18 hours for the data to go one way at a blistering 160 bits per second (in other words, almost a full minute to send a 1kb text file). It really says something when a space mission outlasts its lead personnel, not to mention an entire generation of scientists.

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Starlink launch from Vandenberg tonight was at just the right time to see from Arizona. Of course I missed it. 😑





My view after my Mom called me to ask if I had seen it:

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Edit: Falcon Heavy static fire complete.

 
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NASA has outlined its plan to bring Martian samples back to Earth for future study, which involves setting up a depot at the Three Forks river delta, having a robot arm pluck the samples off Perseverance when it rolls up and load them into a little rocket that then shoots them back to us. If all goes well with the planned space trucking enterprise, the Mars rocks will be here by 2033.

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Concept illustration depicting how to ship some pebbles and dust in the most expensive and awesome manner possible
 
Flacon Heavy tomorrow morning!



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That view from wherever that lighthouse is, shows how freaking fast those things are falling as the landing burn starts!!! nearly all the videos of the landings don't show context until they're nearly down, so the speed isn't apparent.
 
In moon-related news, the CAPSTONE cubesat is on track to achieve lunar orbit on the 13th, after sorting out some spinny-wrongy issues related to a thruster issue earlier. CAPSTONE's goal is to determine whether a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the moon will be stable enough to support the planned Gateway lunar laboratory, a joint venture with several other space organizations.

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Build your own Snap-Tite space station! Just send 10 Frosted Sugar Bombs box tops and a check for $25 billion to...


And in is-it-still-not-working-come-on-guys news, the Boeing Starliner's date for a crewed launch has been pushed back to next April. NASA says it's to prevent conflicts with "visiting spacecraft traffic", but the Aerospace Space Advisory Panel has noted that the most recent orbital test flight had "a number of in-flight anomalies", and no doubt those will need to be resolved before any actual astronauts will be allowed on board.

It should also be noted that as Starliner is a fixed-price contract Boeing is spending their own money to perform all these corrections, and they've already sunk close to $900 million into it now.
 
Booster 7 just performed a static fire at Starbase.

 
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Could see a Starship orbital flight in December if all goes smoothly.

 
CAPSTONE has successfully entered lunar orbit, so the first step towards potentially building an actual manned moonbase is successful.

For six months it'll be testing to confirm whether the planned orbital path is stable enough to support a space station. If usable this orbit would ensure that the station maintains line-of-sight with Earth, which would improve communications speeds and reduce the chance of outages (and probably make it a lot easier for amateur astronomers to keep an eye on too, which would be neat).

I have to admit, out of all the space-related things happening so far this has my attention the most, if only because a permanently manned lunar station is one of the few science fiction tropes we could realistically achieve and I absolutely want to see that happen in my lifetime.

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Oh just sending a crew to a fully fueled rocket to tighten down a few bolts. 😅

 
R1600Turbo
Oh just sending a crew to a fully fueled rocket to tighten down a few bolts. 😅

Click to expand...

I mean, it'd be a lot more expensive to do that after launch. You know how much they gouge you for roadside repairs, after all.
 
Should have just rolled her back into the VAB.
 
Range had an ethernet switch go bad and they lost radar, but it has been fixed and we are still GO.
 
Currently on HOLD to work through a list of items that need attention.

But the main issue with this launch attempt is that its happening at a terrible time of day. So if it doesn't go in ~30 minutes I'll have to catch the highlights in the morning.

Edit: GO FOR LAUNCH!
 
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Artemis Live Tracker

www.nasa.gov

NASA: Artemis I

Artemis I will be the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to build a sustained human presence at the Moon for decades to come.
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov

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Man, I can't wait till we land people on the moon again, because I want to see what kind of mental gymnastics a whole new generation of conspiracy theorists will be doing to try and prove that it's being faked.
 
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