Sorry to burst onto Orlando's page , but these images are too cool to wait for a busy guy like him to get around to posting New Pluto images: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-wows-in-spectacular-new-backlit-panorama Pluto’s Majestic Mountains, Frozen Plains and Foggy Hazes: Just 15 minutes after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon. The smooth expanse of the informally named icy plain Sputnik Planum (right) is flanked to the west (left) by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) high, including the informally named Norgay Montes in the foreground and Hillary Montes on the skyline. To the right, east of Sputnik, rougher terrain is cut by apparent glaciers. The backlighting highlights over a dozen layers of haze in Pluto’s tenuous but distended atmosphere. The image was taken from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) to Pluto; the scene is 780 miles (1,250 kilometers) wide. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI The close-ups from that image are amazing
35 years ago today, Soyuz 38 was launched to the Salyut 6 space station on a Soyuz-U rocket from Pad 1/5, Baikonur Cosmodrome. An eight-day Intercosmos mission, the commander was Yuri Romanenko, while the passenger was Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez. A Cuban, he was the first Western space traveler from a nation other than the United States. He was also the first man of African ancestry to go into space. ******** Born in Guantanamo, Cuba, on January 29, 1942, Tamayo supported Fidel Castro's rise to power and conversion to Communism. He became a fighter pilot in the Cuban Air Force, and was selected to be Cuba's primary representative for the Soviet Union's Intercosmos program in 1978. After his mission, Tamayo was heavily feted by Cuba. He was promoted to Brigadier General, put in charge of Cuba's Military Patriotic Educational Society (SEPMI), and made the representative for Guantanamo in Cuba's rubber-stamp National Assembly, a position he holds to this day.
27 years ago today, Israel became the eighth nation to launch a satellite into space with its own rocket with the launch of Ofeq 1 on a Shavit rocket from Palmachim AFB. Shavit is based on the Jericho II solid-fuel LRBM. It adds a third solid-fuel stage, and a fourth stage fueled by UDMH. Due to the geographical positioning of Israel, they launch their satellites retrograde, or to the west. This results in a very heavy payload penalty, since they are launching against the rotation of the Earth. Although it is feasible for them to launch into polar orbit from the south end of the country, they have not attempted it yet. Israel has conducted nine Shavit launches, of which seven have worked. Their most recent launch, of Ofeq 10, took place in 2014. (Yes, that's 10. One satellite classified as Ofeq was launched by India on a PSLV rocket.) The first Ofeq satellite was a simple test satellite to give Israel experience with solar power and communications. It was placed in a 250 x 1,150 km orbit, and would re-enter in January 1989. Israel is the only nation that routinely launches satellites retrograde. Technically, most satellites in "sun-synchronous" polar orbits (SSO) are in slightly retrograde orbits (to be exact, an inclination approximately 98°) so that they will always be illuminated by the Sun. Only the United States has also launched in non-SSO retrograde. The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) conducted two retrograde launches in 2010 and 2012 as part of their Future Imagery Architecture experiments.
this is very interesting. can you give or link to a good explanation for the layman about these different orbits, perhaps with visuals?
43 years ago today, the first Extended Long-Tank Thor rocket was launched from Pad 17B, Cape Kennedy. Classified as a Delta 1604, it was one of the few Delta 1000s that was not the "Straight 8" design, using the narrower Delta F second stage. The rocket launched the seventh IMP satellite, which researched Earth's magnetic field.
The big news is on in ten minutes. Follow on NASA's live feed. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/
It really wasn't that big, to be honest. We've known for years water occasionally flows on Mars, though it quickly evaporates after upwelling. This just revealed the mechanism for the water flows. The liquid water that appears is believed to be rich in perchlorate salts, which would allow water to be liquid at far lower temperatures. They made clear that this is not particularly evidence that life currently exists, or ever existed, on Mars. It is currently being suspected that NASA hyped this announcement in connection with the film The Martian. ******** 13 years ago today, Atlantis was launched on STS-112 from Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center. On-board was the S1 truss, the first lateral extension out from the core modules of the International Space Station. It was attached to the station by Canadarm2, and outfitted over the period of three EVAs. The mission marked the first time a camera, the "Shuttlecam", was placed on the external tank to film the launch live from on-board, a feature that is now virtually ubiquitous with many launchers, including the Atlas V and Falcon 9. It fogged over after SRB separation, so it was moved further down the external tank in subsequent launches.
22 years ago today, FSW-1-5 was launched on a Long March 2C rocket from Pad 2A, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China. FSW stands for Fanhui Shi Weixing, which translates to "recoverable satellite". FSW-1 was the second series of the satellite, and it was the fifth launch. FSW-1-5 is believed to have largely been a reconnaissance satellite, and also carried a medallion honoring the 100th birthday of Mao Zedong. It was misaimed when it was de-orbited on October 16. Instead of re-entering, its apogee was lifted to over 3,000 km. It finally re-entered in 1996; they did not attempt to recover it, and its fate is unknown.
15 years ago today, Discovery was launched on STS-92 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. The launch brought the Z1 truss to the International Space Station. Z1 would be its first piece of superstructure. It would hold its primary communications equipment, as well as be the temporary home of its first set of solar panels. It would be installed over the course of four spacewalks. The PMA-3 docking port was also brought to the ISS. It was berthed to the Z1 truss for installation on a future mission.
Happy 83rd birthday to American politician and astronaut Edwin Jacob "Jake" Garn. After getting his degrees from Utah in 1955, he went into the Navy, where he flew P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft. He would later move to the Air National Guard, where he would fly re-fueling missions in KC-135's. He was also an early test pilot of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber. Garn would serve in the City Council of Salt Lake City before being elected its mayor in 1971. He would be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974, and would serve three terms, plus being appointed for the remainder of predecessor Wallace Bennett's term late in 1974. He would retire from the Air National Guard as a Colonel in 1979. While in the Senate, Garn was the chairman of a subcommittee that oversaw NASA. He was selected as a congressional observer to fly on a Space Shuttle flight. A Republican, they also selected Florida representative Bill Nelson, a Democrat, to even things out politically and by chamber. Garn would fly into space aboard Discovery on STS-51-D on April 12, 1985. He would beat Don Lind by two weeks as the first Mormon in space. A subject of medical experiments during the week-long mission, he was noted as having one of the worst bouts of space adaptation syndrome ever observed. The astronauts would jokingly scale instances of space sickness based on his name. Garn retired from the Senate in 1992. He has a total of six children; four from his first wife, Hazel, who died in an automobile accident in 1976, and two with his second wife, Kathleen. He also adopted a child from his second wife. NOTE: He is not related to the photographer Jake Garn, but they do live close to each other.
I looked for him on Google to get more on what he was up to, and the latter was the predominant result.
56 years ago today, Explorer 7 was launched on a Juno II rocket from Pad 5, Cape Canaveral. Explorer 7 could be considered one of the earliest Earth observation satellites. In addition to detecting the frequency of micrometeoroid impacts, it took the first measurements that would determine the radiation budget of Earth. It also made key discoveries about how clouds affect Earth's climate. Placed in a roughly 300 x 450 mile orbit, it's still in orbit today. It was active for 22 months. This launch was the last launch of a Jupiter IRBM-derived rocket from Pad 5. It would be refit for the Redstone missile and Project Mercury, while later Juno flights would shift to Pad 26B.
12 years ago today, the People's Republic of China finally conducted their first manned spaceflight, launching Shenzhou 5 atop a Long March 2F rocket from Pad 4, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. On-board was taikonaut Yang Liwei. The Shenzhou spacecraft takes a lot of design cues from the Soyuz. Okay, let's face it. They likely copied it from Soyuz. The key difference is that it is larger, being 1.75 m longer, 30 cm wider, and 2 tons heavier. The early version of Shenzhou had solar panels on both the service module and orbital module, though versions from Shenzhou 8 onward would eliminate the solar panels on the orbital module. The spacecraft was placed in a roughly 205x210 mile circular orbit, and spent 22 1/2 hours in flight, landing somewhere in Inner Mongolia. Its exact landing point was not disclosed. The mission itself appears to have largely been a propaganda exercise; I could find very little data on what exactly Yang did in-orbit beyond what he ate.
They've admitted as much, haven't they? Before the Sino-Soviet fallout in the 1960s, the Soviets and Chinese worked together extensively on rocketry. Even after the fallout there was a lot of cooperation between agencies.
I've mentioned as much in the past. But I think the copying for Soyuz was a much more recent development. China likely didn't have the wherewithal to even think of a manned space program until long after the split.
44 years ago today, the United Kingdom conducted its only successful independent orbital launch, launching the Prospero satellite on a Black Arrow rocket from the Woomera Test Range in Australia. Its intent was to study the effect of the space environment on comsats. It was used on an annual basis for over 25 years, and has been contacted as recently as 2004. Placed in a roughly 330x800-mile orbit, it's expected to remain in orbit until around 2070. The Black Arrow had two stages powered by RP-1, with "high-test peroxide" as the oxidizer. The third stage was solid fuel. It is related to the earlier Black Knight rocket, but is unrelated to the Canadian Black Brant sounding rocket series. ******** If this one looks familiar, that's because I posted it back in May. To this day, I don't know where I got that it was launched on May 18 instead of this date.
Happy 71st birthday to astronaut Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman. Born in Brooklyn, but was raised in Scarsdale, New York, he got his bachelors in astronomy from Amherst in 1966, then a doctorate in astrophysics from Harvard in 1971. His doctoral studies involved X-ray and gamma ray astronomy from balloon-borne instruments. Post-doctoral work in the UK would involve his telescopes being launched on suborbital missions on Black Arrow rockets. He would also help design experiments for NASA's High Energy Astronomy Observatory (HEAO-1, 1977) and the European Space Agency's EXOSAT (1983). Hoffman was selected to NASA in Astronaut Group 8 in 1978, and got his first mission with STS-51-D on Discovery. During this mission, he filmed an extensive series of videos showing the behavior of toys in space. He was also conscripted to conduct the Space Shuttle program's first contingency spacewalk following the malfunction of Syncom IV-3 in an unsuccessful effort to trigger its kickmotor. He flew on Columbia for STS-35, the ASTRO-1 astronomy mission. Originally designed to study Halley's comet, it had to be targeted elsewhere. Hoffman also designed experiments for this payload. In addition to both missions involving the TSS (STS-46 and STS-75), he would also fly STS-61, the first servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope. During this mission, he would become the first astronaut to celebrate Hanukkah in space. Dr. Hoffman retired from the Astronaut Corps in 1997, and was then named NASA's representative in Paris. He retired from the office in 2001, and became a professor of astronautics at MIT in 2002. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Leicester, and continues to design experiments for the International Space Station. He is married to a British woman, and they have two sons together.
Here's another familiar image. But unline Prospero, this one comes with new content. 49 years ago today, the U.S. Air Force launched a mock-up of their Manned Orbiting Laboratory, topped with the refit Gemini 2 spacecraft, on a Titan IIIC rocket from Pad 40, Cape Kennedy. Its official designation was OPS 0855. The Gemini 2 spacecraft was refit into a configuration known as "Gemini B". It was released late in the launch phase on a suborbital trajectory to test its heat shield. The Gemini B was designed so astronauts could egress into the MOL through a hatch at the bottom during the mission. The capsule survived re-entry, with the bottom hatch welding shut as it was hoped to do. It was recovered near Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, around 5,000 miles downrange. The MOL mock-up was really an aerodynamic test article consisting of an empty rocket stage. It re-entered two months later. Five manned flights were planned to begin in 1972. However, not everyone in the defense and intelligence community were on-board with the program. Richard Helms, selected as head of the CIA under President Johnson, believed any astronaut deaths in the MOL program would harm NASA. It was also determined that unmanned reconnaissance missions could do just as much as, if not more than, the manned MOL could. One of the first things President Nixon did in his administration was cancel MOL. Its chosen under-35 astronauts were transferred to NASA, most becoming its first crop of pilots and commanders for the Space Shuttle.
10 years ago today, Venus Express was launched on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Site 31/6, Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was the European Space Agency's first mission to Venus. The probe was based on the same bus as Mars Express, but featured additions to counter the higher heat load at Venus. It entered orbit around Venus on April 11, 2006. It was eventually placed in a 24-hour, 460x63,000-km orbit. In addition to providing additional data on the composition of Venus, it was used to detect what signs of life on Earth looked like from that distance, to assist in the search for extraterrestrial life. The mission ended at the end of 2014, and the probe was destroyed when it was de-orbited on January 18, 2015.
51 years ago today, the first firing test of the Apollo Service Propulsion System was conducted at White Sands Missile Range. The SPS was the main engine of the Apollo Service Module. At its core was a hypergolic Aerojet AJ10-137 engine, which used Aerozine 50 for fuel and nitrogen tetroxide for oxidizer. The exhaust bell was enormous, and placed on a gimbal for precision exhaust direction. The engine produced about 20,500 pounds of thrust. It was originally designed to take an Apollo CSM directly off the surface of the Moon and into a trajectory back to Earth. When they decided to have a separate Lunar Module, this engine now had twice the power required for a TEI burn from lunar orbit.
10 years ago today, the Japanese Hayabusa probe dropped the lander MINERVA on the astroid 25143 Itokawa. Or, at least, it attempted to. MINERVA was supposed to be a test concept of a "hopper" lander. It would use a series of fly wheels to gently hop across the surface of Itokawa. However, at the time the command was sent to release MINERVA, Hayabusa had initiated an altitude-keeping sequence. As a result, when MINERVA was released, its inertia carried it away from Itokawa, and it floated off into deep space. A hopper-style lander has not succeeded yet. The first attempt, the Soviet Union's Phobos 2, failed before it could release its landers. It was supposed to test a hopper lander on the Martian moon Phobos.