Space and astronomy news
A South Korean rocket carrying a climate observation satellite apparently exploded 137 seconds into its flight early Thursday. The two-stage Naro rocket operated normally during and after liftoff from the country’s space center, Minister of Education, Science and Technology Ahn Byong-man said. But then communications with the rocket were lost.
This is the country’s second major space setback in less than a year.
Continue reading “South Korean Rocket Explodes 137 Seconds Into Flight”
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The final scheduled space shuttle flight of Endeavour that has been targeted for late November 2010 is now likely to move to January or even February of 2011 because the primary payload, the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, won’t be delivered to KSC in time to support the earlier date. Additionally, the penultimate scheduled mission, STS-133 Discovery, currently slated for September 16, could be delayed until October. As we reported yesterday, the first hint of Endeavour’s delay came from the announcement of a new opportunity for students to send experiments to space on Endeavour, and now Florida Today reports Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana said it could even be February until the AMS is ready to go.
The White House and Congress are considering adding a third and final shuttle mission that could be flown next June. Each additional month of shuttle operations costs $100 million to $200 million. While the funding for shuttle missions technically only goes until the end of 2010, mission managers have said there is currently enough money in the shuttle budget for about two months of operations in 2011.
After that and possibly one more mission next summer, if funding is approved, Cabana, speaking at a National Space Club Florida Committee meeting, hopes to see KSC transition be able to support commercial space ventures and be less reliant on a single NASA program like Apollo, the shuttle or even Constellation.
“What we don’t want to be in the future is tied to any one large program,” Cabana said.
The delay for the AMS involves switching out to magnets that will last longer in space, since operations of the ISS have been extended to 2020. Liquid helium would have been used cool the superconducting magnet’s temperature to near absolute zero. But tests showed the helium would dissipate withing 2-3 years, leaving the seven-ton experiment useless.
Source: Florida Today
Logical explanations take all the fun out of UFO’s. After the Falcon 9 rocket launched successfully, later, over on the other side of the world, people in Australia saw a spiraling object in their early morning skies, about 6 am local time. Geoffrey Wyatt, from the Sydney Observatory, said it appeared to have been the Falcon 9 rocket, which launched about an hour earlier.
Another image below.
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The image is from the 9MSN website in Australia, where you can see more images.
If you recall, there was another spiraling rocket that created a visual sensation over Norway in December of 2009.
Hat tip to The Original Rocket Dungeon. Added later: Oh, and I see the Bad Astronomer has fully explained the whole thing!
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Universe Today photographer Alan Walters was on hand for Friday’s spectacular and picture-perfect launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Enjoy a gallery of images, including this great shot of a Prandtl–Glauert singularity, or shock cone that formed around the rocket, which sometimes occurs when a sudden drop in air pressure occurs when rockets or aircraft are traveling at transonic speeds.
“This has really been a fantastic day,” said an exuberant Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, speaking with reporters after the flight. “It’s been one of the best days of my life. It’s certainly been one of the greatest days for the people of SpaceX.”
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The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sits poised on Cape Canaveral to begin a new era in space flight, as the company received their final clearance from the U.S. Air Force make their first launch attempt on Friday, June 4, 2010. The launch window is from 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. EDT (1500 and 1900 GMT) (a webcast will be available at this link). The commercial space company will send its two-stage 180-foot (55 meter)-high rocket to space, carrying a mock-up of their Dragon capsule, and if successful, will pave the way for cargo flights – and maybe even crewed flights — to the International Space Station for NASA.
Space Exploration Technologies’ CEO Elon Musk told reporters Thursday that the maiden flight probably has a 70 percent to 80 percent chance of succeeding.
“However, I should point out that is less than the probability of success in Russian roulette,” Musk said. “Remember that scene from ‘The Deer Hunter?’ That’s tomorrow. But not quite as likely.”
But, Musk added, “Everyone at this point feels pretty confident. There’s very little we can do to improve the rocket as far as reliability is concerned. We’ve done everything we could possibly think of.”
“There is a lot of anticipation by all the people here at SpaceX,” said Ken Bowersox, a former astronaut who flew in the space shuttle, and is now SpaceX’s vice president for astronaut safety and mission assurance. “It’s a really big launch for the company. We’re trying not to let that excitement and anticipation bias our judgment.”
The importance of this flight test is not lost on anyone at SpaceX or the space community, as NASA’s new plan rolled out by President Obama depends largely on the success of commercial space companies. The space shuttles are being retired and many wonder about NASA’s dependence on yet-untested commercial companies to ferry supplies and astronauts to space.
SpaceX has not provided many details about the flight path, but the rocket is hoped to climb to a 250 km (155 mile) -high circular orbit tilted at 34.5 degrees to the equator.
Musk said 100 percent success would mean reaching the planned orbit. “But I think given this is a test flight, whatever percentage of getting to orbit we achieve would still be considered a good day. I think even if we prove out just that the first stage functions correctly, that’s a good day for a test. That’s a great day if both stages work correctly.”
“If the vehicle lifts off the pad, no matter what the outcome is, we’re going to learn something that’s going to make the second flight more likely and the third flight and the fourth flight,” said Bowersox.
If all goes well, SpaceX plans to fly up to three Falcon 9/Dragon test missions for NASA, before starting cargo deliveries – maybe by next year — to the ISS, part of a $1.6 billion contract. The other company that NASA is depending on Orbital Sciences Corp, which plans to debut its Taurus 2 rocket in 2011. NASA has a $1.9 billion station resupply contract with that company.
SpaceX has launched smaller versions of the Falcon rocket, and it took four tries for the first success.
Forecasters say there is a 60 percent chance of good weather, improving to 70 percent favorable on Saturday.
One of our favorite astronauts, Chris Hadfield from Canada, was recently part of the NEEMO-14 crew — NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations — who spent two weeks in an underwater habitat simulating a long-duration space mission. The crew put together this great video showing what it would be like to walk and jump on the Moon, Mars and an asteroid. The “Aquanauts” and support divers are weighted down to simulate the different gravity. There’s also a jet pack demonstration, which the crew decided is needed for any future mission to an asteroid!
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Even since amateur astronomers picked up on the orbit of the Air Force’s secret X37-B space plane, others have been trying to capture images of the mini-space shuttle look-alike. So far, images have been just streaks or dots, but Universe Today reader Brent (a.k.a. HelloBozos) was actually able to image the plane in some detail. “This is the first I know of or have seen an actual photo taken of the X37-B Air Force Space Plane in some detail, while in orbit!” Brent said in an email. He tracked the X37-B manually with his telescope’s handcontroller, and he used a CanonT1i prime focus on a 2 inch diagonal. “This image was taken on 5-26-2010 at 9:48 pm EST, Orlando, Florida, USA. It crossed from the southwest to the northeast, crossing next to Mars and headed to the handle of the Big Dipper on a 71 degree pass.”
Below, Brent also captured a flare of the X37-B.
Brent says on the colored photo, “you can make out the main wings, a rear canard, and what I dub the “Fly Swatter’ solar panel.”
Brent said he tracked the X37-B from the information on HeavensAbove.com. Spaceweather.com also has tracking info, plus other images submitted by readers.
Thanks to Brent for sharing his images. Nice — and fast — shooting! And this isn’t the first time Brent was keeping his telescope’s eye out for the X37-B. He also shot the launch in good detail, even from 60 miles away. The volume is cranked on this one:
Boeing and the US Air Force tested a supersonic combustion ramjet engine on May 26 with the longest hypersonic flight in history. The X-51A WaveRider was dropped from a B-52 and flew for nearly three and a half minutes, flying at five times the speed of sound – Mach 5. The unmanned aerial vehicle was tested off the southern California coast around 10 a.m. on May 26, and it flew autonomously for more than 200 seconds, but then something then occurred that caused the vehicle to lose acceleration. But the teams who worked on the project are still calling the test a success.
Continue reading “Successful Test of Air-Breathing Scramjet Engine”
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At a post-landing news conference, STS-132 commander Ken Ham described the incredible visual effects the crew of Atlantis witnessed as they returned to Earth today. As the shuttle was engulfed in plasma during the hottest part of their re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, they were in orbital darkness, which highlighted the orange, fiery glow around the shuttle. “We were clearly riding inside of a fireball, and we flew right into the sunrise from inside this fireball, so we could see the blue color of the Earth’s horizon coming through the orange. It was amazing and just visually overwhelming.”
As evidence, ISS astronaut Soichi Noguchi captured Atlantis as that fireball, streaking though atmosphere, just as dawn approached. “Dawn, and Space Shuttle re-entered atmosphere over Pacific Ocean. 32 years of service, 32nd beautiful landing. Forever, Atlantis!” Noguchi wrote on Twitter, posting a link to the image.
Amazing.
Asked about his thoughts after landing, Ham said, “Walking around Atlantis after the flight I realized I probably just did the most fun and amazing thing I’ll do in my life.”
As for Atlantis, and whether she’ll fly one more time, the latest word is that the NASA authorization bill — as it stand now –will include language authorizing an additional shuttle mission.
As for Noguchi, take in all the images you can now from him on his Twitter feed, He, along with Expedition 23 Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov, and astronaut T.J. Creamer are scheduled to leave the ISS on the Soyuz spacecraft on June 1 and land on the southern region steppe of Kazakhstan, completing almost six months on the station.
Here’s an image Noguchi took of Atlantis just after it undocked from the ISS last weekend.
A bittersweet moment in space history as Atlantis and her six-member crew landed at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday morning. Very likely, this was Atlantis’ final landing, returning home after 25 years of service. The rich history of the Atlantis space shuttle includes 294 days in space, 4,648 orbits and 120,650,907 miles during 32 flights. There’s a chance this orbiter could fly again – she’ll be readied as a rescue ship for the last scheduled shuttle mission –and many shuttle supporters feel that since Atlantis will be fully geared up, she should fly one last time. But only time (and funding and Congress) will tell if Atlantis will fly again.
Continue reading “Atlantis Returns Home — For the Last Time?”