Just to return the emphasis to ‘out there’.
Upcoming launches and landings of crew members to and from the International Space Station, and launches of rockets delivering spacecraft that observe the Earth, visit other planets and explore the universe.
The world’s most powerful operational rocket could finally launch again as soon as next week.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in the world, is approaching its first launch in over three years. The massive launch system, which is powered by three modified Falcon 9 first-stage boosters, is now linked together and awaiting launch from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Ahead of the launch, SpaceX has shared an image of the behemoth’s 27 Merlin engines on Twitter. “Falcon Heavy in the hangar at Launch Complex 39A,” the company wrote alongside the impressive photo.
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On October 17th, a NASA official speaking at an Astrophysics Advisory Committee meeting revealed that the European Space Agency (ESA) had begun “exploring options” and studying the feasibility of launching the Euclid near-infrared space telescope on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
In a major upset, director Josef Aschbacher confirmed less than three days later that ESA will contract with SpaceX to launch the Euclid telescope and Hera, a multi-spacecraft mission to a near-Earth asteroid, after all domestic alternatives fell through.
The European Union and, by proxy, ESA, are infamously insular and parochial about rocket launch services. That attitude was largely cultivated by ESA and the French company Arianespace’s success in the international commercial launch market in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s – a hard-fought position that all parties eventually seemed to take for granted. When that golden era slammed headfirst into the brick wall erected by SpaceX in the mid-2010s, Arianespace found itself facing a truly threatening competitor for the first time in 15+ years.
NASA will buying more Orion spacecraft, the Artemis program capsules taking astronauts to the moon, under a billion-dollar deal with Lockheed Martin.
Circa 2013 face_with_colon_three
Physicists have been chasing antimatter technology for more than 80 years now — driven by the promise of oppositely oriented particles that explode in a burst of energy whenever they make contact with their more common counterpart. If we could tame antimatter, those explosions could be used to power a new generation of technology, from molecular scanners to rocket engines to the so-called “annihilation laser,” a tightly concentrated energy beam fueled by annihilating positrons. But while scientists have seen recent breakthroughs in creating the particles, they still have trouble capturing and containing them.
A new metal alloy keeps its flexibility and strength after high doses of radiation, making it potentially useful for building spacecraft or Mars colonies.
SpaceX has once again stack Starship 24 with Booster 7 ahead of launch prep tests. It is being prepped for an orbital test flight that will send Ship 24 around Earth once, wrapping up with a splashdown off the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
Credit: SpaceX
HOUSTON, Oct. 18, 2022 – The nonprofit Space Center Houston is advancing a Facilities Master Plan to support the growing need for space exploration learning and training in two massive structures that will also give the public a front row seat into the development of robotics, rovers, lunar landers and reduced gravity systems. Today, the center offered a glimpse of the facility that will include two enclosed simulated cosmic terrains of the Moon and Mars, as well as modular surface labs and STEM learning centers. An elevated exhibit hall over the two surfaces will offer the public immersive experiences to observe astronaut training first-hand while experiencing the future of space exploration as humans return to the Moon and eventually on to Mars.
Space Center Houston is responding to the opportunities and challenges in a rapidly evolving space sector, including the need for facilities built for current and future missions, while sharing this excitement with the public and addressing critical gaps in the development of the STEM workforce through its education programs. The facility will bring together guests, NASA, commercial space partners, colleges, universities and global space agencies to collaborate on new technologies that are propelling present and future human spaceflight.
For 30 years, Space Center Houston has chronicled the journey of human spaceflight while empowering and inspiring people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “Space is expanding once again and a new space age is upon us,” said William T. Harris, President and CEO Space Center Houston. “With new ambitions, new players and new challenges, we will shift our focus from being a curator of past achievements to also facilitating new feats in space.”
Early Earth was quite the place.
For the first time, astronomers have been able to estimate the length of the day and the distance to the Moon as it was almost two and a half billion years ago.
The invention relates to the use of the collision of matter and antimatter as a means of propulsion in a spacecraft, to the control system for said engine and to a block diagram of the connections for same, in which all of the functions are divided into modules. Said invention refers to a form of propulsion that is totally different to those know at present, which enables spacecraft to move considerably faster in outer space and to reach up to one third of the speed light owing to the controlled collision of matter and antimatter. The control system works in conjunction with the engine in order to control the collision and to maintain the optimal parameters for performing said movement.
