Pic of the Week: Third Launch of the Starship

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Starship launch from Boca Chica, Texas on March 14, 2024. (SpaceX)

This week’s pic is from this morning’s launch of the SpaceX Starship from the facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The flight went well until the point of reentry, when SpaceX lost contact and the rocket was lost. The plan had been for both a successful launch and return of the Starship. The Starship’s rocket booster also experienced a malfunction, causing it to crash in the Gulf of Mexico.

Each launch provides more information as it inches towards greater success. We can only hope the progress aligns with NASA’s goals for a return to the Moon.

Pic of the Week: Spiral galaxy NGC 1300

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): JWST’s view of spiral galaxy NGC 1300. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), and the PHANGS team)

This week’s image is from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It shows a face-on view of spiral galaxy NGC 1300, which is 69 million light-years away.

Here is more about the image from NASA:

Webb’s image of NGC 1300 shows a face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which is circular and shows a bright white point at the center with a light yellow circle around it. The central core is tiny compared to the rest of the galaxy. The core extends into the galaxy’s prominent diagonal bar structure, which is filled with a blue haze of stars. Orange dust filaments cross the bar, extending diagonally to the top and bottom, connecting the yellow circle in the central core to the galaxy’s spiral arms. There are two distinct orange spiral arms made of stars, gas, and dust that start at the edges of the bar and rotate counterclockwise. Together, the arm and bars form a backward S shape. The spiral arms are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange. Scattered across the packed scene are very few bright blue pinpoints of light. There are vast areas between where the orange spiral arms wrap that appear black. The top left and bottom right edges are dark black and there are some larger red and blue points of light, some that appear like disks seen from the side.

Pic of the Week: The Launch of the IM-1 Mission

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Today’s launch of the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission from the Kennedy Space Center. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today)

This week’s image shows the early morning launch of Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket carries the Nova-C robotic lander, also called “Odysseus,” that includes both NASA and commercial payloads. If all goes well, the lander will be on the surface of the moon next week.

This image from Florida Today is unique in that it is a time exposure showing both the launch from the Kennedy Space Center as well as the booster landing shortly afterward.

Credit: Intuitive Machines

Pic of the Week: Launch of the PACE Mission

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Engines of the SpaceX rocket carrying the PACE spacecraft into orbit. (SpaceX)

This week’s image is from SpaceX, which launched NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission into orbit earlier today (the Falcon 9 rocket engines are shown above). 

The spacecraft is designed to monitor the Earth from orbit. NASA explains the mission is this way:

Information collected throughout PACE’s mission will benefit society in the areas of ocean health, harmful algal bloom monitoring, ecological forecasting, and air quality. PACE also will contribute new global measurements of ocean color, cloud properties, and aerosols, which will be essential to understanding the global carbon cycle and ocean ecosystem responses to a changing climate.

The PACE’s mission is designed to last at least three years, though the spacecraft is loaded with enough propellant to expand that timeline more than three times as long.

Pic of the Week: Space Shuttle Finds a New Home

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Ongoing construction work assembling the Space Shuttle Endeavor and related stack elements at the planned Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. (California Science Center)

This week’s image comes from California and shows the construction of a new giant exhibit at the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. What you are seeing is a covered Space Shuttle Endeavour, which flew its final mission back in May 2011.

You can view more images and videos related to the creation of this new exhibit by visiting the California Science Center site. The site notes:

This will be the only complete stack of authentic space shuttle flight hardware in existence, making the Endeavour exhibit even more significant than before. In addition to allowing the public unprecedented, unique vantage points, this configuration retains a complete flight stack for engineers and historians to examine in the future. NASA and aerospace companies frequently visit museums to look at hardware from previous programs in order to design for the future projects.