Today, September 8th, 2016, marks the scheduled launch date for one of the newest NASA space probes, OSIRIS-REx. This craft is planned to study the asteroid 101955 Bennu, and eventually return a sample of it for study back on Earth. This is quite the ambitious mission, and follows many successful materials return missions dating back […]
A SpaceX Falcon 9 Booster exploded on the pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 40 today, minutes before a standard test of the first stage engines in anticipation of a scheduled launch on Saturday, September 3rd. Of course, this explosion destroyed the booster vehicle and the payload, the AMOS-6 satellite which was […]
As is common post launch, United Launch Alliance has published a video compiling highlights and best views of the launch of AFSPC-6 on its Delta IV rocket. As is equally common for me, I present this video here for those of you who enjoy such, and don’t feel like sitting through the entire launch video […]
At 12:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time this morning, August 19th, a Delta IV booster carrying the twin AFSPC-6 satellites successfully lifted off from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. These satellites are, as best i can tell, intended to monitor on orbit activities of other satellites and the like for the benefit […]
Coming up tonight, or early tomorrow morning I should say, will be the launch of a Delta IV rocket carrying a pair of “Space Situational Awareness Program” satellites into a near geosynchronous orbit. Like most military payloads, these satellites are a bit of a mystery, but from what I can gather they will provide a […]
We had another successful SpaceX launch this morning. In fact, as I begin typing this, the second stage and the payload, JCSAT-16, have yet to leave their parking orbit – we are still about 5 minutes away from the second engine burn that will put the satellite on course for a geostationary orbit! This launch, […]
This film, produced in 1981, follows the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-1, April 12th to 14th of 1981. The video tells the general story of the 4 day mission, while also going over details on the general operations of the then new Space Shuttle. One of the best things about this […]
Back in the 1970’s, NASA began a transition from the Apollo program, using expendable rockets and single-use capsules, to an idea known as the Space Shuttle – a reusable space plane to carry crew and cargo into orbit at a fraction of the cost of traditional boosters. Of course, 40 years later, we all know […]
45 years ago today, Apollo 15 was deep in its mission.By the time it was all over, the crew had spent 4 days at the moon, conduction research from both orbit and from the surface, including the missions most famous moment where a falcon feather and a hammer were dropped in the effective vacuum of […]
45 Years ago today, Apollo 15 Landed at Hadley Rille on the Moon. The Crew of this J class mission, David Scott, Al Worden, and James Irwin, would spend 3 days both in orbit and on the surface studying the moon, which was, of course, the true scientific goal of the Apollo program – to […]
It was 45 years ago today that the 4th manned lunar landing took place. Hadley Rille, a geographically intriguing area of the lunar surface, was chosen as the landing site due to the possible volcanic origins of the region, with the rille area itself being likely one of the best areas to gather samples from. […]
As most know, the accomplishments of the United States and Soviet space programs were really an extension of and, in most ways, a practical application of the missile technology of the era. Machines built to send nuclear warheads across the oceans were equally suited to send payloads into orbit around the Earth. Of course, accomplishing […]
Two and a half months after the flight of Freedom 7, NASA was ready for another Mercury – Redstone test flight. The pilot for this flight was Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom, a Korean War Veteran from the United States Air Force. This flight was to be a duplicate of Shepards Freedom 7 flight, testing out […]
Today, July 20th, 2016, marks 47 years since Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. It’s an event that everyone knows of, but, as historically significant as it was, was just a test flight – the later Apollo landings were the real missions of science and exploration that Apollo was born to execute, but 11, that […]
One year ago today, on July 14th, 2015, the New Horizons space probe passed by the dwarf planet Pluto, scanning its surface with a multitude of research experiments, cameras, scanners, and more to try to gather all the information we could on it, and it’s moons, during our one time fly-by of this much beloved […]