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Category: space travel – Page 195

“Looking at the starry sky, with those thousand-year-old walls embracing the ancient constellations and the passing, modern ISS, was undoubtedly a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Masi said in a statement on Thursday.

Masi also released an annotated version of the image showing constellations marked and labeled, from Pegasus to Ursa Minor.

The Colosseum is nearly 2,000 years old. The ISS has been in space for over 20 years. They are very different kinds of monuments, but they meld together beautifully in an image that speaks to the past and the present and how far humans have traveled.

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“Specialists of the Central Military District’s search/rescue and parachute service have been relocated in full to the Republic of Kazakhstan to provide for the safe landing of the Soyuz MS-20 descent capsule with space tourists from Japan on its board,” the press office said in a statement.

The Central Military District has redeployed additional personnel from the Chelyabinsk Region in the Urals to bolster the basic group that provided for the safe launch of the Soyuz spacecraft. In particular, about 50 more rescuers have been redeployed to Kazakhstan together with eight Mi-8 helicopters and two PEM-1 and PEM-2 ‘Blue Bird’ search and evacuation vehicles, the statement says.

Overall, the search and rescue operation to provide for the safe landing of the Soyuz MS-20 descent module involves about 200 rescuers, 12 Mi-8 helicopters, two An-12 planes and an An-26 aircraft and over 20 motor vehicles, including six pieces of ‘Blue Bird’ rescue and evacuation equipment.

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The prospect of Starship making its mark on the Space Coast entered another level this week when NASA revealed it would conduct environmental assessments on LC-49 to support Starship launch and landing operations.

With SpaceX already confirming they will restart work on a Starship pad inside 39A, the potential of a second site at LC-49 could provide a considerable increase in Starship launch cadence from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

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On December 15, NASA announced that SpaceX submitted a new proposal to build a Starship launch site at Launch Complex-49 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Previously, SpaceX officials mentioned plans to build a Starship launch tower at historic Launch Complex-39A, the launch site from where NASA Apollo astronauts lifted off atop Saturn V on a voyage to the Moon half a century ago. NASA and SpaceX are working to return humans to the lunar surface by 2025. SpaceX is developing a lunar-optimized Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to land astronauts on the moon as part of the Artemis program that aims to build a sustainable presence on our closest celestial neighbor.

The unbuilt Launch Complex-49 is an 175-acre land located north of Launch Pad-39B and Pad-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center premises. The agency released a map of the region, pictured below, that outlines the locations of each launch site. “LC-49 has been a part of Kennedy’s master plan for several years,” said Tom Engler, Kennedy’s director of Center Planning and Development. “The Notice of Availability was updated in 2014.”

“Every new construction project, whether government or commercial, goes through a comprehensive environmental review process,” said Don Dankert, technical lead for the Kennedy Environmental Planning Office. “This ensures that we are able to identify potential environmental impacts and define any associated mitigations prior to project implementation.”

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The 24thSpaceX cargo resupply services mission, targeted to launch in late December from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carries scientific research and technology demonstrations to the International Space Station. The experiments aboard include studies of bioprinting, crystallization of monoclonal antibodies, changes in immune function, plant gene expression changes, laundering clothes in space, processing alloys, and student citizen science projects.

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Less than two weeks after CEO Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX has restarted construction of a Starship launch site at Kennedy Space Center’s existing LC-39A pad, NASA has revealed the company’s plans for an entirely different Starship launch site just a few miles to the north.

Known as Launch Complex 49 (LC-49) and located where NASA once considered building LC-39C, a third Saturn-class pad to match 39A and 39B, NASA now says that SpaceX aims to develop the site into a dedicated Starship launch pad. The plot of land NASA deemed LC-49 as recently as 2017 sits about 1 mile (1.6 km) northwest of NASA’s LC-39B Space Launch System (SLS) pad and 3 miles (5 km) northwest of LC-39A, which SpaceX has leased since 2014 and launched out of since 2017. Unlike 39A, though, SpaceX has a huge amount of work – and major environmental reviews – ahead of it to turn LC-49 into a site capable of launching a rocket more than twice as powerful as Saturn V.

As of today, “LC-49” amounts to a mostly arbitrary dotted line on a map. Situated a few thousand feet south of the lovingly named Mosquito Lagoon Aquatic Preserve and Canaveral Seashore National Park, the site encompasses a variety of wild wetlands and is fully undeveloped. While substantially wetter, the land SpaceX hopes to develop is actually quite similar to the site that now hosts Starbase’s Starship launch facilities in Boca Chica, Texas. Prior to SpaceX’s arrival, the area was empty coastal mudflats.

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Interstellar travel is very time consuming, moving from star to star, but perhaps we could use stars themselves as spaceships, and move whole solar systems or even galaxies.
Today we’ll look at how to use Shkadov Thrusters, novas, supernovae, black holes and quasars to move through space, literal starships.

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Credits:
Generation Ships: Fleet of Stars.
Episode 186, Season 5 E20

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Two different versions of the 35-meter-wide subsonic parachute flew perfectly.

The European Space Agency (ESA) completed the first successful high-altitude drop test of the ExoMars mission parachute, which will be the largest to ever fly on Mars, a press statement reveals.

The first and second stage parachutes have now both flown this year, meaning the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission is on course to launch for the Red Planet in Sept. 2022.

ExoMars mission is ‘on the road to launch’ The latest high-altitude drop tests took place in Oregon on Nov. 21 and Dec. 3 as part of a series of parachute tests aimed at ensuring the safe landing of the Exomars rover aboard the Kazachok lander, which is currently scheduled for some time in June 2023. The 35-meter-wide subsonic parachute will be the second parachute to deploy during the ExoMars descent modules final moments before touchdown. Two different versions of the 35-meter subsonic parachute were tested, with one developed by European firm Arescosmo, and the backup by U.S.-based Airborne Systems.

“Both parachutes deployed and flew beautifully,” said Thierry Blancquaert, ESA Exomars program team leader. “We maximized the lessons learned from all previous tests and with this double success following the impressive first stage parachute deployment earlier this year, we’re really on the road to launch. We have demonstrated we have two parachutes to fly to Mars.”

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Referring to Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self Driving features.

Elon Musk has claimed that no other CEO cares as much about safety as he does in an interview with Financial Times.

In the year that has seen his private wealth balloon like never before, Musk has also been showered with titles, beginning with the richest person in the world and more recently, the person of the year by Time Magazine. The Time accolade is probably one of the many titles Musk will receive as he embarks on his mission to send humanity to Moon with his space company, SpaceX.

Before we get there though, there are some issues with his other company Tesla that needs addressing. The company’s short history is peppered with incidents that have risked human lives as it pushes the boundaries of autonomous driving. The company offers features called Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) which are still in beta stages and have been involved in accidents. In August, this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched an investigation into the Autopilot feature that involves 750,000 Tesla vehicles.

Speaking to FT, Musk said that he hasn’t misled Tesla buyers about Autopilot or FSD. “Read what it says when you order a Tesla. Read what it says when you turn it on. It’s very, very clear,” said Musk during the interview. He also cited the high ratings Tesla cars have achieved on safety and also used SpaceX’s association with NASA to send humans into space to highlight his focus on safety. He also went a step further to say that he doesn’t see any other CEO on the planet care as much about safety as he does.

Although Musk is spot on about the high safety ratings of the cars and even NASA’s faith in SpaceX to ferry its astronauts, the Tesla website does not give the impression that the Autopilot or FSD is in beta and cannot be completely relied upon. Rather a promotional video even goes on to claim that the person in the driver’s seat is only for legal reasons and does not even have his hands on the steering wheel at all times, a requirement for enabling Autopilot. according to Tesla’s own terms.

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