In April, NASA’s ‘Ingenuity’ aircraft made history when it became the first drone to take-off, fly, and land in the atmosphere of another planet. Watch Anderson Cooper fly the terrestrial version: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-drone-mars-60-minutes-2021-08-01/
When SpaceX deploy batches of Starlink satellites they drop them off in lower orbits and expect the satellites themselves to navigate towards their final operational orbits. This is quite a complex process and one that’s worth discussing, the satellites need to be able to reach the target orbital plane, raise the orbit to operational altitude, and then finally maneuver to a specific slot within that plane before they become operational.
Satellite Orbital Maps by Celestrak.
https://celestrak.com/
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Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg was one of the world’s foremost theoretical physicists and a passionate advocate for science. Among his many influential contributions is the co-discovery of the electroweak theory that unifies electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force, a central pillar in the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Join Brian Greene and physicist John Preskill as they pay tribute to Steven Weinberg and his profound contributions to science.
This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.
Join me as I take a tour of SpaceX’s Starbase facility with Elon Musk as our tour guide! This is part 2 of 3 so stay tuned, there’s another one coming!
If you need some notes on this video with key points, check out our article — https://everydayastronaut.com/starbase-tour-and-interview-with-elon-musk/
Robots are taking over low-paid and increasingly risky jobs in recycling, keeping the industry churning.
A new 3D-printed bridge in the Netherlands contains sensors that will help researchers study crowd behavior, and the impact tourism has on a neighborhood. Check out more trending stories on ITK: https://bit.ly/39pSMAR
According to Musk, “Starbase is moving at Warp 9” as SpaceX prepare for the first orbital demonstration of the Starship/Super Heavy stack. It is going to be an absolute monster topping out at 120 meters, almost 10 meters taller than the mighty Saturn V.
Although largely a demonstration mission, Musk has said that it will carry a “wheel of cheese.” This was also the first payload of the company’s Dragon spacecraft. It was chosen because it was the silliest thing they could imagine.
