Archive for September, 2017
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September 1st, 2017
Credit: Penguin Random House
A heist story set on the Moon – early PR for Andy Weir’s new novel: Artemis.
The bestselling author of The Martian returns with a new near-future thriller.
According to Penguin Random House:
“Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you’ve got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.”
Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down, explains the PR blurb. “But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she’s stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.”
Posted in 
New planetary prowler – the NASA Mars 2020 rover – scouring the Red Planet for select samples for eventual return to Earth.
Credit: NASA/JPL
NASA’s next Mars rover is being readied for the Red Planet. To be launched in July/August 2020 and slated for arrival in February 2021, it is the most complex piece of machinery ever plopped down on that distant world.
Once on the planet, the nuclear-powered Mars 2020 rover has unusual duties compared to predecessor robots. To achieve a checklist of jobs it is imbued with far more software smarts to land upon and traverse across Mars while rapidly carrying out an agenda of scientific tasks.
Next gen rover
Once again, stand by for another 7 minutes of terror as the Mars 2020 rover is lowered onto the Red Planet by the Sky Crane.
Credit: NASA/JPL
To learn more on this impressive mission to Mars, go to my new article in the September 2017 issue of Aerospace America – the magazine of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA):
To read “Beating Curiosity: A Next Generation Robotic Rover Could Start Rolling Across the Mars Surface in 2021”
Go to:
https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/features/beating-curiosity/
Credit: SpaceX
The soon-to-launch SpaceX Falcon Heavy is billed by the company as the world’s most powerful operational rocket. Its maiden flight is slated for November, rocketing off pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
No matter how you look at it – Falcon Heavy is a big deal.
Its first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores adding up to 27 Merlin engines.
The twenty-seven Merlin engines that power Falcon Heavy’s three cores are arranged in an “Octaweb” structure.
Credit: SpaceX
Excitement guaranteed
“There’s a lot that could go wrong there. I encourage people to come down to the Cape to see the first Falcon Heavy mission. It’s guaranteed to be exciting,” said Elon Musk founder, CEO and lead designer at SpaceX.
“I hope it makes it far enough away from the pad that it doesn’t cause pad damage,” Musk said. “I would consider even that a win to be honest. Yeah…a major pucker factor really is the only way to describe it.”
Cluster busters
Soviet Union’s N-1 Moon rocket – cluster of engines.
Saturn V booster with its cluster of five F-1 engines.
Credit: NASA
Russian Soyuz booster is rolled out to the launch pad by train on Monday, April 17, 2017 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
Rocketry’s “Big Bang” theory?
What’s at stake? What’s behind “clusterphobia”?
Check out my new Space.com story at:
‘Major Pucker Factor’: Will SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Ace Its Maiden Launch?
https://www.space.com/38016-spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-maiden-launch-success-chances.html
