May 27th, 2024
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China’s Chang’e-6 Moon-orbiting mission is studying far side landing sites for accessibility and to perform a safe touchdown in early June. Launched on May 3, some 5 days later the craft entered a 12-hour lunar orbit and began circularizing its orbit. James Head of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Science at Brown University […]
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Back in mid-December from the Jiuquan Space Center, China launched its reusable spacecraft test vehicle on a flight 3 cruise. UK satellite tracker, Bob Christy via his Orbital Focus posting, explains that the Chinese space plane released a small satellite May 24, “or maybe earlier if it ran close alongside its parent for a while. […]
Perhaps yet another bit of space debris leftover has hot-footed its way onto terra firma. This latest incident is within The Glamping Collective in Canton, a secluded mountaintop 160-acre site that features travel/leisure outdoor structures near Clyde, North Carolina. WLOS, a local ABC-affiliated TV station in Asheville, North Carolina, reported the find last week by […]
At a NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Project Science Working Group meeting today, James Head of Brown University offered this projected milestone update on China’s now lunar orbiting Chang’e-6 mission – a sample return to Earth from the Moon’s far side — now targeted to land June 2 (Beijing Time). The mission underway mirrors […]
SpaceX is posting that the fourth flight test of its Starship could launch as soon as June 5, pending regulatory approval. The fourth flight test is focused from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy. “The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in […]
The largest camera ever built for astrophysics has arrived at the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile. Transported from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) 3200-megapixel camera is the largest digital camera in the world. The device will soon be installed on the Simonyi Survey […]
Who Owns the Moon? – In Defence of Humanity’s Common Interests in Space by A.C. Grayling; Oneworld Publications/distributed by Simon & Schuster (2024); Hardcover, 224 pages; $26.95. Multiple countries have the Moon within its cross-hairs, for scientific purposes, for industrial gain, as well as to salute its military usefulness. Of late, China has put into […]
BOULDER, Colorado — The sending of Artemis astronauts beyond the protective cocoon of Earth’s magnetic field to the Moon is spurring a look at flight rules and sharpening space weather forecasting skills. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) here is working with NASA space radiation specialists to bolster space weather […]
The Washington Post has an informative series focused on the “New Space Age” – one that includes an exclusive conversation with the NASA Artemis II crew. “Space travel is booming,” explains the Washington Post, “creating an energy around the exploration of our solar system that hasn’t been seen since the days of Apollo — and […]
The lead scientist for the NASA Perseverance rover is upbeat regarding how much material has been stuffed in tubes, both dropped on the surface of Mars, as well as contained within the rover itself while wheeling about within Jezero Crater. Tagged “Lefroy Bay,” Caltech’s Ken Farley called attention to this sample collected by the Perseverance […]
