Category: Space

Tomorrow’s a big day for space nerds. NASA will be landing its newest remote robotic outpost on Mars, as William Hardwood writes:

After a six-month voyage from Earth, NASA’s InSight Mars lander, streaking through space at at some 12,300 mph, will slam into the thin martian atmosphere Monday afternoon to begin a nail-biting six-and-a-half-minute descent to the surface, kicking off a billion-dollar mission to probe the red planet’s hidden interior.

If it makes it to the surface safely, InSight will help us understand the internal structure of Mars, giving us new … insight … into how our own world was formed.

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Going to space is hard, but it’s even harder when the program is struggling like this.

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NASA’s new crew capsule is one step closer to flying, as Chris Bergin reports:

The Orion Program has concluded its drop test series for the spacecraft’s parachute system, with a successful return to terra firma on Wednesday. The three chutes will allow Orion to conclude its mission with a gentle splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Ensuring the system was safe, including during the loss of a chute, has been the main goal of the test series that has been ongoing for around a decade.

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Tonya Malinowski, at ESPN:

In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger stunned the nation when it broke apart 73 seconds into flight. This is the story of the soccer ball that survived – and the family that sent it into space, twice.

I was born the day of the Challenger explosion, and had no idea about this story until I saw this story. It’s an incredible, heart-touching read.

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Loren Grush, The Verge:

This afternoon, SpaceX landed the most powerful version yet of its Falcon 9 rocket, after launching the vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The so-named Block 5 upgrade took off from the company’s launchpad at Kennedy Space Center, sending a communications satellite into orbit for Bangladesh and then touched down on one of the company’s drone ships in the Atlantic. It was the 25th successful rocket landing for SpaceX, and the 14th on one of the company’s drone ships.

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This week on Liftoff:

Stephen launches a new segment about the SLS, then talks with Jason about the swearing in of NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and the future of NASA TESS.

As of this writing, there are just a few hours left to score some Liftoff merch.

My thanks to our sponsor:

• Eero: Never think about WiFi again. Use code LIFTOFF for free overnight shipping.

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Sarah Lewin, writing at Space.com:

The most-viewed eclipse in history had an unexpected witness: A Google Street View car drove right through the path of totality, offering a surprising celestial treat for visitors scoping out the event in Maryland Heights, Missouri.

The intrepid car captured the darkened sky, streetlamps flickering on and even skywatching pedestrians on the vehicle’s travels through the path of the 2017 total solar eclipse in August. Michael Kentrianakis, an eclipse chaser and member of the American Astronomical Society’s Solar Eclipse Task Force, told Space.com about the eye-catching view this past weekend at the 2018 Northeast Astronomy Forum (an annual gathering of thousands of skywatchers in Suffern, New York) after seeing reports of the view circulating online.

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NASA JPL:

The Sun will rise on NASA’s solar-powered Mars rover Opportunity for the 5,000th time on Saturday, sending rays of energy to a golf-cart-size robotic field geologist that continues to provide revelations about the Red Planet.

“Five thousand sols after the start of our 90-sol mission, this amazing rover is still showing us surprises on Mars,” said Opportunity Project Manager John Callas, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

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I spent Monday at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. I was there as part of a #NASASocial event ( my second) to attend the agency’s “State of NASA” event, where Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot discussed the Administration’s 2019 Budget.

Jason Snell and I spoke at length about the budget on today’s episode of Liftoff. You should go check it out, but the TL;DR is that the White House wants NASA to push Mars to the back burner and get back to the moon next decade. There are a lot of questions about if that’s possible given the budget, and there is lot to be upset about, including cuts to Earth Sciences and education, the cancellation of the WFIRST telescope and the doubts it throws on the future of the International Space Station.

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SpaceX successfully launched its new Falcon Heavy vehicle. Built out of three Falcon 9s, its 27 engines are capable of 5 million pounds of thrust, putting 140,700 pounds of payload into space. That’s twice what United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy Booster can do, but still shy of the mighty Saturn V rocket that took men to the moon.

The payload of today’s launch has been the source of a lot of conversation. At the tip of the vehicle was a Tesla roadster, complete with a dummy in the driver’s seat, dressed in a SpaceX spacesuit. The car will orbit the sun roughly as far out as Mars, but isn’t going to orbit the Red Planet itself, as was previously rumored.

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The Falcon Heavy is SpaceX’s next-generation, heavy-lift vehicle, powered by 27 motors. Those engines were fired, with the rocket clamped down, this morning in Florida:

Falcon Heavy hold-down firing this morning was good. Generated quite a thunderhead of steam. Launching in a week or so. pic.twitter.com/npaqatbNir

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 24, 2018

With 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, the Falcon Heavy will be able to take equipment — and eventually people — beyond the low-Earth orbit to the moon and beyond.

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Late last week, American astronaut and all-around badass John Young passed away at the age of 87.

Young’s 42-year career at NASA is unique; he flew two Gemini missions, served as the command module pilot on Apollo 10 then walked on the moon as part of Apollo 16.

In 1973, he was named Chief of the Space Shuttle Branch of the Astronaut Office and was then promoted to Chief of the Astronaut Office a year later.

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