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 Ariane 5 launch vehicle made its 100th flight yesterday, September 25th, carrying 2 communications satellites (Horizons-3e and Azerspace-2/Intelsat 38) successfully into their respective geosynchronous orbits high above the Earth. Ariane 5 is another one of those rocket systems that could be described as a workhorse – it’s an incredibly capable booster in the European […]
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 […]
Since tomorrow morning marks the 1-week anniversary of the final Delta II launch, I thought it would be neat to take a simple look back at the final primary payload deployed by the Delta II – ICESat-2. I already shared this video in my article on the successful launch of the payload, but hey, why […]
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 […]
In an interesting coincidence, today marks the 1 year anniversary of Cassini’s Grand Finale – its final plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn, the planet it spent its life studying. It was one hell of an event – after being in space for nearly 20 years (originally launched in 1997 on a Titan IV) and […]
It’s mission complete for the Delta II rocket – today at 6:01 A.M. Pacific Time the final Delta II booster launched on the last mission of the program to deliver ICESat-2 into a polar orbit to begin its mission of studying the Earth’s cryosphere. This launch marks the 155th Delta II launch, the 100th successful […]
At 6:01 A.M. Pacific Time the final Delta II rocket launched from LC-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base carrying ICESat-2 and a small compliment of CubeSats into orbit. This mission is still underway – as I write these words we’re only 30 minutes into the mission, in a coast phase between burns of the second […]
As is standard fare for a United Launch Alliance flight we have here the ICESat-2 mission profile video. What isn’t standard fare is that this is a Delta II launch. Not just any Delta II launch, but the final flight of the Delta II booster. Yes. That’s it. This will mark flight 155, and the […]
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 […]