Lifeboat Foundation

Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos gave more insight into his space company’s lunar plans on Wednesday, explaining how its spacecraft will eventually be powered with fuel harvested from the moon.

“We know things about the moon now we didn’t know about during the Apollo days,” Bezos said, speaking at the JFK Space Summit in Boston, Massachusetts.

One of the things learned since Apollo that Bezos highlighted is that there are deposits of water ice at the bottom of craters on the moon.

In an unexpected last-second change, SpaceX has moved Falcon Heavy Flight 3’s center core landing on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) from 40 km to more than 1240 km (770 mi) off the coast of Florida.

Drone ship OCISLY is already being towed to the landing site, necessary due to the sheer distance that needs to be covered at a leisurely towing pace. The current record for distance traveled during booster recovery was set at ~970 km by Falcon Heavy center core B1055 in April 2019. If successful, Falcon Heavy center core B1057 will smash that record by almost 30% after sending two dozen spacecraft on their way to orbit. Falcon Heavy Flight 3 is scheduled to lift off in support of the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program 2 (STP-2) mission no earlier than 11:30 pm ET (03:30 UTC), June 24th. A routine static fire test at Pad 39A will (hopefully) set the stage for launch on Wednesday, June 19th.

A green propellant alternative will be tested out in space for the first time.

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Continue reading “Why SpaceX is Making Starlink” »

ST. LOUIS — As astrophysicists prepare to begin their next decadal survey, other scientists and members of Congress endorsed the overall process even as they suggested some changes.

At a town hall meeting during the 234th meeting of the American Astronomical Society here June 11, leaders of the latest astrophysics decadal survey, dubbed Astro2020, said they’re ready to begin work identifying scientific priorities in the field for the coming decade and what spacecraft and ground-based observatories are best suited for them.

Robert Kennicutt, an astronomer at the University of Arizona and Texas A&M University who serves as co-chair of Astro2020, said the National Academies, which oversees the decadal survey, received more than 450 nominations to serve on the steering committee Astro2020 decadal survey. Ultimately the National Academies selected 20 people, counting Kennicutt and fellow co-chair Fiona Harrison of Caltech, to serve on the committee.

How will this affect space travel as well as per grids?

The mission will make India the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, adding its name to a long list of recent achievements in space exploration. In the past 10 years, the Indian space agency has launched multiple missions into space to gain a better understanding of Mars and the Moon.

India’s space agency says it will make the country’s first landing on the surface of the moon in September this year.

The country’s latest lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, which means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, is to lift off in mid-July.

Continue reading “India hopes to become fourth country on the moon in September” »

We can now sail on sunlight in space, just like a sailboat at sea! Our CEO Bill Nye explains how.

Updated 5 p.m. Eastern with corrected quote provided by the company in final paragraph.

WASHINGTON — Small launch vehicle Vector has hired a new chief financial officer who previously held similar positions at Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada Corporation.

Vector announced June 12 Stephanie Koster as its new CFO, leading the company’s finance and business operations. Koster joined the company in March, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Continue reading “Former Blue Origin and SNC executive joins Vector” »