Category: Space

Loren Grush, writing at The Verge, on the mark Obama left on NASA:

In the space community, Obama will undoubtedly be heralded for focusing on stronger partnerships with the private sector. And Obama has made a big commitment to NASA’s Earth Science programs, as well as the agency’s investments in technology development.

But not all of Obama’s decisions for NASA have been met with praise. The Space Shuttle program ended during his administration, and the US has had no way of sending people to space without cooperation from Russia. And NASA has gone through a pivotal transformation in recent years, as a result of Obama. The president shifted NASA’s focus from a return to the Moon to a human mission to Mars.

There are still a lot of questions about what NASA under a Trump administration will look like. If I had to guess, I would say that the Journey to Mars program will be pivoted again, if not canned altogether in favor of a moon mission. Some Republicans really like the moon.

Loren Grush:

SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket today from California — over four months after one of the company’s vehicles exploded on a launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket took off just before 1PM ET from Vandenberg Air Force Base, putting 10 satellites into orbit for communications company Iridium. After the initial takeoff, SpaceX was also able to land the Falcon 9’s first stage on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. It was the first successful launch of the Falcon 9 since August, as the company was forced to ground all of its vehicles following the September explosion.

NASA:

NASA has selected two missions that have the potential to open new windows on one of the earliest eras in the history of our solar system – a time less than 10 million years after the birth of our sun. The missions, known as Lucy and Psyche, were chosen from five finalists and will proceed to mission formulation, with the goal of launching in 2021 and 2023, respectively.

Lucy will study the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit, while Psyche will be the first spacecraft to visit a metal asteroid.

This is exciting stuff.

Want to know when the International Space Station will be overhead where you live? There’s a service for that.

John Wilford at The New York Times:

John Glenn, a freckle-faced son of Ohio who was hailed as a national hero and a symbol of the space age as the first American to orbit Earth, then became a national political figure for 24 years in the Senate, died on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio. He was 95.

Glenn had one hell of a resume:

• World War II and Korean War veteran
• First American to orbit the Earth
• U.S. Senator from the state of Ohio
• Oldest person in space, at the age of 77

America lost a hero today.

NASA’s spacecraft that is currently circling Jupiter has had a rough couple of weeks.

On October 14, it was announced that the engine burn that was to insert Juno into close orbit around the gas giant would be postponed:

Mission managers for NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter have decided to postpone the upcoming burn of its main rocket motor originally scheduled for Oct. 19. This burn, called the period reduction maneuver (PRM), was to reduce Juno’s orbital period around Jupiter from 53.4 to 14 days. The decision was made in order to further study the performance of a set of valves that are part of the spacecraft’s fuel pressurization system. The period reduction maneuver was the final scheduled burn of Juno’s main engine.

Juno was still scheduled to pass Jupiter even without this burn, but then the spacecraft encountered more issues:

NASA’s Juno spacecraft entered safe mode Tuesday, Oct. 18 at about 10:47 p.m. PDT (Oct. 19 at 1:47 a.m. EDT). Early indications are a software performance monitor induced a reboot of the spacecraft’s onboard computer. The spacecraft acted as expected during the transition into safe mode, restarted successfully and is healthy. High-rate data has been restored, and the spacecraft is conducting flight software diagnostics. All instruments are off, and the planned science data collection for today’s close flyby of Jupiter (perijove 2), did not occur.

NASA has until early December to get the engine valve issue straightened out, or it will be another 53 days before the burn can be attempted again. I wouldn’t want to have be feeling the stress the Juno team must have right now, and I hope they get things worked out. It’s a cool mission to a planet we don’t know all that much about.

Loren Grush:

Despite expectations of fiery explosions, Blue Origin successfully landed its New Shepard rocket after launching the vehicle for the fifth time today. The landing was a delightful surprise for the company, since it fully expected that rocket to either break up or slam into the floor of the Texas desert.

That’s because the purpose of today’s flight was to test out the New Shepard’s escape system. It’s a feature that will save future passengers on board the vehicle, in case the rocket suffers a major failure during flight.

In short, the crew capsule escape system uses a motor on the underside of the capsule to pull it away from the booster. That act was thought to damage the booster, or knock it off trajectory enough to make a landing impossible.

Turns out Jeff Bezos’ team underestimated their hardware. While SpaceX may make more headlines, Blue Origin is coming right along in their quest for reusable boosters.

You can watch the whole thing on YouTube:

Early this morning, the European Space Agency’s comet-circling spacecraft ended its mission with a crash landing into Comet 67P. Sweet sleep, friend.

Ria Misra at Gizmodo:

SpaceX plans to build a “self-sustaining city” on Mars, according to its founder Elon Musk. But, while we now know a lot more about how SpaceX plans to get to Mars, details about how people will actually survive up there remain sketchy.

Misra has the best round-up of the news that I’ve seen. I haven’t had a chance to see all of the keynote yet, but there are plenty of open questions left about Musk’s plan.