It’s great to see Tim Dodd from Everyday Astronaut on the list, but one woman on a prime crew of eight is disappointing.
Category: Space
Orion Due to Splashdown Sunday ⇢
The Orion spacecraft swung by the Moon on Monday, flying to within 130 km of that world’s surface as it set course for a return to Earth this weekend.
In making this “powered flyby burn” to move away from the Moon, Orion’s service module performed its longest main engine firing to date, lasting 3 minutes and 27 seconds. After successful completion of the maneuver, NASA’s mission management team gave the “go” to send recovery teams out into the Pacific Ocean, where Orion is due to splashdown on Sunday, during the middle of the day.
Orion Space Capsule Reaches Farthest Point From Earth During Artemis I Mission ⇢
Leah Cheshier, writing yesterday for NASA:
NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft reached the farthest distance from Earth it will travel during the Artemis I mission — 268,563 miles from our home planet — just after 3 p.m. CST. The spacecraft also captured imagery of Earth and the Moon together throughout the day, including of the Moon appearing to eclipse Earth.
Reaching the halfway point of the mission on Flight Day 13 of a 25.5 day mission, the spacecraft remains in healthy condition as it continues its journey in distant retrograde orbit, an approximately six-day leg of its larger mission thousands of miles beyond the Moon.
Alexa in Spaaaaace ⇢
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, writing at The Verge:
Earlier this summer, on the day Artemis I was originally scheduled to launch, I spent an hour testing out the capabilities of this new deep space voice assistant down on the ground at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
While this was a demo model (they wouldn’t let me in the spacecraft — I asked), as far as I could tell, it was an exact replica of the one on Orion, even down to the lack of an internet connection.
Employees Fired After Writing Open Letter About Elon Musk ⇢
If you’re tired of reading bad news coming out of Twitter, don’t worry, this story is about SpaceX.
Back to the Moon ⇢
Yours truly, speaking with Texas Standard earlier today about the Artemis I launch:
After the end of the space shuttle program, we really were kind of stuck in terms of getting a crew to space from American soil. And SpaceX and others are working to supply missions to the International Space Station, but there hasn’t been anything really since Apollo to get us further out into space. And so the SLS rocket, this Artemis 1 mission, is the first big step to put boots back on the moon for the first time in 50 years.
SLS Finally Flies
At 1:47 Eastern time this morning, NASA’s $20+ billion rocket finally left its launch pad:
Launch starts about 3:16:54 into the video.
The SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule have their roots all the way back into the early 2000s, as NASA prepared for a post-shuttle world.1 It’s taken longer — and cost more — than expected, but now NASA has a vehicle capable of returning crew to the moon.
Artemis 1 Launch ⇢
NASA’s next Artemis 1 launch window is upon us. The SLS rocket is slated to launch November 16th, with the two-hour launch window opening at 1:04 AM Eastern. It’ll be streaming on NASA TV if you’re awake.
Artemis I Rocket Rode Out Hurricane Nicole, Saw Winds Above Specified Safety Levels ⇢
As Hurricane Nicole spun over Florida, NASA’s bajillion dollar SLS rocket sat atop Launch Complex-39B. Eric Berger:
Prior to Nicole’s arrival, NASA said its SLS rocket was designed to withstand wind gusts of 74.4 knots. Moreover, the agency stated on Tuesday in a blog post, “Current forecasts predict the greatest risks at the pad are high winds that are not expected to exceed the SLS design.”
From the publicly available data, however, it appears that the rocket was exposed to wind gusts near, at, or above 74.4 knots for several hours on Thursday morning. A peak gust of 87 knots was reported on the National Weather Service site, with multiple gusts above NASA’s design levels. It is possible that the 74.4-knot design limit has some margin built into it.
Look Up Tomorrow Night ⇢
Nicholas Terry, Space Explored:
Early tomorrow morning, people around the globe will have the opportunity to view one of the most spectacular events in the sky, a total lunar eclipse. Here’s a rundown of how to watch this event and why total lunar eclipses are often referred to as “blood moons.”
If you can’t make it out, NASA will be streaming the event.
SLS Back on the Pad
NASA is about to try to launch its Artemis 1 mission again. Here’s Stephen Clark at Spaceflight Now:
NASA scrubbed the first launch attempt for the Artemis 1 moon mission Aug. 29, when data indicated one of the rocket’s four hydrogen-fueled main engines was not being properly thermally conditioned during the countdown. Engineers later determined that the thermal measurements were from a bad sensor, and not indicative of a more serious problem.
A Mac Portable in Spaaaaaaaace ⇢
That famous clip of a floppy disk floating through the air after being ejected from a Macintosh Portable really makes my brain vibrate in a special way. In this video, Scott Manley explains why the Portable was there in the first place: