In a bit of rocketry news that I’m long overdue for writing about, back on January 21st, 2018, the New Zealand company Rocket Lab had the first successful launch of their Electron rocket – a booster designed to launch very small payloads into Earth orbit. Not only does this mark New Zealand’s entry into orbital …
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Category:Science
No, Pluto Is *Not* A Planet Again
I really can’t believe this is still having to be addressed, but here we go, again. A post is making the rounds on Facebook saying “Pluto has been reclassified as a planet!” This is, of course, an outright lie, and the article cited as a source for it is absolutely idiotic when actually read. Here …
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The Challenger Explosion Wasn’t Actually An Explosion
Today marks 32 years since the Challenger Disaster. On January 28th, 1986, The Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds into it’s 10th mission due to one of its solid rocket boosters having a failed o-ring in a joint between 2 sections of booster casing. this caused a burn thorough situation with the booster which, …
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Apollo 1 – The Year After The Fire
January 27th, 1968 marked one year since the fire at Launch Complex 34 that killed the crew of Apollo 1: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. One year without a manned American space flight. One year of major change to our space program. One year of relative uncertainty. 1968 would, as fate would have …
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Atlas V SBIRS GEO-4 Launch Highlights
Here we have, as always, the launch highlights from last weeks Atlas V SBIRS launch. It was an early evening launch with spectacular views, as is usually the case for an Atlas V launch. This particular clip is interesting to me in that this being Launch Complex 41, it’s the same one that Cassini, and …
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50 Years Ago, The Launch And Mission Of Apollo 5
On January 22nd, 1968 a Saturn 1B rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 37B carrying the first Apollo Lunar Module into orbit for its first in-space test flight. While Apollo 4 had tested the massive Saturn V, itself, of course, a critical machine in physically getting to the Moon, Apollo 5 …
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SBIRS Geo-4 Successfully Launches On An Atlas V Rocket
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V lifted off yesterday from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the 4th Geostationary Satellite in the Space-Based Infrared System, a collection of specialty satellites operated by the United States Air Force designed to assist the United States military in situational awareness in the battlefield, especially …
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Delta IV NROL-47 Launch Highlights
Here we have the launch highlights video for the United Launch Alliance Delta IV launch of NROL-47. As is standard for these launch highlights videos, it covers the usual pre-launch preparations, and contains many views of the vehicle which were not shown during the actual launch live stream. It includes some quite beautiful views of …
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15 Years Ago: The Launch Of Columbia On STS-107
15 years ago today the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off on what was to become its last mission, STS-107. This flight carried a crew of 7 not to the International Space Station – Columbia was far too heavy for the orbital inclination the Space Station orbits at – but a simple Earth Orbit mission for …
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Space Industry Fanboys, Credibility Claims, And Cherry Picking – Dissecting A Twitter Discussion
Yesterday proved to be a bit interesting for me on Twitter. I was giving my own comments on the Delta IV launch yesterday, one of which was my typical congratulations tweet to United Launch Alliance, the operators of Delta IV, and the CEO of the company, Tory Bruno. At the end, though, I left a …
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NROL-47 Successfully Launches On A Delta IV Rocket
After several delays, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base carrying the NROL-47 satellite into a polar orbit. Just what is NROL-47? No one outside of the National Reconnaissance Office really knows for sure. Of course, we know it was inserted into a polar orbit of some type, given …
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A Follow Up On SpaceX And Zuma
Okay, a few days ago I wrote one of my usual articles regarding more interesting things with space new, this time covering the apparent loss of the mysterious Zuma satellite. I wrote about it based on what was “known” at that time, as well as what was speculated, but from a somewhat reserved standpoint – …
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United Launch Alliance 2017 Launch Highlights
Here’s one I should have gotten to back in December but couldn’t get to for, well, reasons. This is a launch highlights compilation for year 2017 produced by United Launch Alliance, showing of the past years launches of 1 Delta IV booster, 6 Atlas V boosters, and the second to last Delta II launch ever. …
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Reports Say The Mysterious “Zuma” Payload May Be Lost!
In a bit of news that I just have to write about, it appears, according to several news reports over the last 24 hours that the “Zuma” payload launched by SpaceX this past Sunday has been lost ! Of course, reports are conflicting – some sites are saying the launch was fine on SpaceX’s part, …
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John Young
Yesterday was, needles to say, a rather rough day for me. I woke up quite late, as usual, to the news that Astronaut John Young had died the previous day, January 5th. John Young was an absolute legend among astronauts, up there as high as Alan Shepard, John Glenn or Neil Armstrong. John Young flew …
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