Space Stories: New Stars in the Heavens, Moon Budget Passes Senate, and Lunar Trailblazer Needs to Call Home

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Stingray nebula (Hen-1357), the youngest known planetary nebula. (Matt Bobrowsky, Orbital Sciences Corporation and NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Live Science: “2 ‘New Stars’ Have Exploded into the Night Sky in Recent Weeks — and Both are Visible to the Naked Eye“

A second “new star” has unexpectedly appeared in the night sky, less than two weeks after a near-identical point of light first burst into view without warning. The first nova, dubbed V462 Lupi, was initially spotted June 12 shining in the Lupus constellation, after its progenitor star suddenly became more than 3 million times brighter than normal. Then, on June 25, multiple astronomers detected another nova, dubbed V572 Velorum, within the Vela constellation, according to EarthSky.org. Astronomers normally expect to see a classical nova once a year at most, and more than one of these explosions shining simultaneously is almost unheard of.

—TechCrunch: “Congress Just Greenlit a NASA Moon Plan Opposed by Musk and Isaacman“

Legacy aerospace giants scored a win Tuesday when the U.S. Senate passed President Trump’s budget reconciliation bill that earmarks billions more for NASA’s flagship Artemis program. The $10 billion addition to the Artemis architecture, which includes funding for additional Space Launch System rockets and an orbiting station around the moon called Gateway, is a rebuke to critics who wished to see alternative technologies used instead. Among those critics are SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who Musk proposed as the next NASA administrator.

—The Register: “NASA Gives Lunar Trailblazer a Few More Weeks to Pick Up the Phone“

NASA has extended recovery efforts for its stricken Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft to mid-July, but is warning that if the probe remains silent, the mission could end. Contact with the small satellite was lost the day after its launch on February 26. Controllers were initially able to receive engineering data from the vehicle, but the telemetry indicated power system issues, and the spacecraft eventually fell silent.