The next stage in the Hayabusa2 mission occurred this morning with the release and successful landing of the MASCOT rover on the asteroid Ryugu. This comes as a part of the same mission which brought us the first photos from the surface of an asteroid and will culminate with a sample return from Ryugu in […]
Coming right on the heels of NASA’s 60th anniversary of operations comes a finding that comes as a direct result of funding by NASA through Planetary Astronomy grant NNX15AF44G – the announcement of another dwarf planet orbiting the Sun! Now, these dwarf planets are nothing new. The most famous of which is, of course, Pluto, […]
September 30th, 2018 marked 1 year since the end of the Rosetta mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P). As a part of this anniversary, the European Space Agency produced this video title “Rosetta: The Story Continues” which takes a look into some of the discoveries already made about the nature of comets, and speculation of the […]
Haven’t we been down this road before? Didn’t I already do a 60th Birthday post for NASA earlier this year? Yes, yes I did. However, that post was for the July 29th, 1958 formation of NASA as an agency, the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act. In the 2 months following that date in 1958, […]
Last week Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe successfully delivered the first of 3 sets of rovers to the surface of the asteroid Ryugu, proving us the first photos from the surface of an asteroid. Hayabusa 2 is one of those many current space mission which I’ve simply never covered. It flew “under the radar” so to […]
The 7th of Japan’s “Kounotori” cargo supply crafts launched towards its resupply mission to the International Space Station on Saturday, September 22nd after several delays. Among the supplies being carried are more replacement batteries for the Space Station’s electrical systems, multiple cubesats for independant deployment and research purposes, and the first test of a samples […]
On September 25th, 1973 the Skylab 3 Command Module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, bringing an end to the record-setting mission. Clocking in at 59 days, 11 hours flight time, this mission doubled the record for time spent in space on a single flight, the previous record having been set by Skylab 2. This […]
Here we have the launch highlights video for the final Delta II launch – ICESat-2. This early morning flight was a beautiful end to the nearly 30 year Delta II program and was, as expected, a complete success. This marked the 100th successful Delta II flight in a row, also setting a world record for […]
Here’s a neat little bit of video you don’t get too often for a Delta IV – footage from onboard during launch. While this footage is always awesome to watch, and is rather common among some other boosters and launch providers, for Delta IV onboard footage has been a little scarce through the years. This […]
What United Launch Alliance rocket flight would be complete without a launch highlights video? The Parker Solar Probe is no exception here, as we have yet another fine blend of preparation shots and best of views of the early ascent of the Delta IV Heavy. Of note in this video is the man shown watching […]
I didn’t get much sleep last night. I, of course, stayed awake to watch the launch of the Parker Solar Probe. Sadly, that launch didn’t happen this morning as planned. The original launch time of 3:33AM Eastern was pushed back by 20 minutes to accommodate some issues experienced in the countdown. Those issues were resolved, […]
I shot several hours of video last August during the 2017 Solar Eclipse. While most of it just shows the sun slowly getting more and more covered by the Moon (we had, I believe, 94% totality in my area) until it’s nothing but a crescent, a few frames from the video proved better than normal, […]
As I mentioned in a pair of previous articles, I’m beginning a slight cleanup of Xadara. By slight, I mean probably 50 articles being deleted, and a shift to the general structure of the site. Of course, this is all for the better. Regarding articles, I want to clear up some of the more negative […]
I mention in my previous article about the launch of Skylab 3 that I would hunt for videos related to the mission. Well, sure enough, I quickly found a solid one – Skylab, A Scientific Harvest is a 1974 produced NASA Film on the two month long Skylab 3 mission. The video goes into light […]
On July 18th 2018 aerospace company Blue Origin conducted the 9th test flight of their New Shepard launch vehicle. New Shepard is a booster intended for commercial suborbital missions for both scientific research and space tourism, and holds the much-ignored distinction of being the first booster to reach space and safely land vertically, predating a […]