A Day in Astronomy: Launch of the Spitzer Space Telescope

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Spitzer Space Telescope. (NASA/JPL)

On this day in 2003, NASA launched the Spitzer Space Telescope to conduct infrared astronomy. Spitzer continued to operate until January of 2020.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) noted some of the triumphs of the space telescope, including:

  • revealing a system of seven Earth-size planets around a star 40 light-years away;
  • creating an unprecedented map of the Milky Way;
  • directly observing light from a planet outside our solar system;
  • directly identifying molecules in the atmospheres of exoplanets; and
  • revealing Saturn’s largest ring.

An impressive list of accomplishments for any telescope.

You can read more about Spitzer at this NASA mission website as well as this JPL website.

“India Is on the Moon”

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Image (Credit): The ISRO mission control room celebrating the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission on the Moon. (ISRO)

Now that is a clear message from S. Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed on the lunar surface at  8:34 am ET today.

India is now the fourth nation to land on the moon, not that other nations haven’t tried.

This victory is all the sweeter following Russia’s loss of the Luna-25 spacecraft. We needed some good news this week.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated:

Congratulations ISRO on your successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar South Pole landing! And congratulations to India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We’re glad to be your partner on this mission!

NASA provided the mission with a passive laser retroreflector array for lunar ranging studies.

The mission rover (shown below) should be moving about south pole soon enough to start its experiments in the vicinity.

You can learn more about the mission and equipment at this ISRO site.

Credit: ISRO

A Day in Astronomy: The Launch of Voyager 2

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Image (Credit): The launch of Voyager 2. (NASA)

On this day in 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 2 space probe from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida to study the solar system’s outer planets as well as interstellar space beyond the Sun’s heliosphere.

The Voyager 2 space probe is still talking to us as it continues its journey beyond the planets with a special message for anyone it may encounter.

During its initial mission, the space probe provided us with many images from an little known region of our solar system, including the image below of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Image (Credit): Europa during Voyager 2’s closest approach. (NASA)

Space Quote: If You Build It…Don’t Forget to Maintain It

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Image (Credit): The Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA/Kim Shiflett)

“On average we have a $250 to $260 million dollar annual maintenance gap…Unplanned failures can have mission impacts, and the last thing we want to do is affect Artemis or some other significant mission.”

-Statement by NASA Facilities and Real Estate Division Director Eric Weiser regarding the maintenance of NASA’s infrastructure, as reported in The Register. He went on to say, “What that means is, on average, we’re renewing our infrastructure around every 200 years… A better number would be 60 to 80 years, and to do that we simply need more funding.” I know maintenance expenditures are boring, but this is no different than defense or highways. You get what you pay for, and also what you maintain.

Space Quote: What’s the Launch Date for Artemis III?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: NASA

“We really are trying to get in the details of that schedule because when we come up with a date, December of 2025, or whatever that date might be, we want to have confidence for our teams, that we all have a realistic path to get there.” 

-Statement by Jim Free, NASA associate administrator of Exploration Systems Development, regarding the launch date of the Artemis III mission, as reported in Florida Today. The story highlights the potential delays related to SpaceX’s Starship and Axiom’s space suits.