• All Eyes on the Next Moon Mission

    The second NASA-related commercial Moon mission was set to launch earlier today, but SpaceX called it off at the last moment due to a methane issue with its Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX is expected to try the launch tomorrow. The launch of the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission is related to NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services…

  • Space Stories: A Test of Space Suits, Water Detected on Asteroids, and China’s Growing Space Program

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —The Verge: “One of NASA’s New Spacesuits Passes Microgravity Test“ Collins Aerospace, a private company hired to create spacesuits for use outside the International Space Station (ISS), has tested its suit aboard a commercial microgravity flight, passing a milestone that lets engineers move forward toward critical design review…During the test, the…

  • The Goldilocks Zone Turned Awfully Cold for Earth

    We point of telescopes at distant solar systems searching for exoplanets in the “Goldilocks Zone,” it being defined as the habitable zone around a star where water can remain in liquid form. But that was not always the case for planet Earth, even if we are the model for this zone. A recent New York…

  • Study Findings: A Recently Formed Ocean Inside Saturn’s Moon Mimas

    Nature  abstract of the study findings: Moons potentially harbouring a global ocean are tending to become relatively common objects in the Solar System. The presence of these long-lived global oceans is generally betrayed by surface modification owing to internal dynamics. Hence, Mimas would be the most unlikely place to look for the presence of a global ocean. Here,…

  • Movie: Rebel Moon on Netflix

    In an earlier post, I mentioned those movies you don’t need to see until they come to your television. What is even easier is when they start on the television, as is the case with Netflix’s Rebel Moon. Released in mid-December, and labeled as “Part One: A Child of Fire,” you may be witnessing the…

  • Upcoming Exhibits at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

    If you are planning your next vacation, keep the Smithsonian Museums in Washington, DC in mind, particularly the National Air and Space Museum. The updated museum has plenty of impressive exhibits to keep you and your family busy and informed. You can also travel to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia for even…

  • Pic of the Week: Launch of the PACE Mission

    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…

  • Bad News for NASA’s JPL and the Mars Sample Return

    NASA has started to crack under budget uncertainty. The Washington Post has reported that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is laying off 530 employees and another 40 contractors. Overall, this is an eight percent drop in JPL staffing, most of it related to the Mars Sample Return (MSR) efforts that have been facing cost overruns…

  • Space Stories: Preparing for a Commercial Space Station, Ukraine Protests New ISS Crew, and Metal 3D Printing in Space

    Here are some recent stories of interest related to space stations. —SpaceNews: “Starlab Commercial Space Station to Launch on Starship“ Starlab Space, the joint venture developing the Starlab commercial space station, has selected SpaceX’s Starship to launch the station on a single flight. Starlab Space, a joint venture of Voyager Space and Airbus Space and Defence,…

  • Cosmonaut Surpasses Earlier Days in Space Record

    Just yesterday, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko surpassed an earlier record for the amount of time a human has spent in space. He has now been in orbit more than 878 days, this being his fifth rotation on the International Space Station. The earlier record was set in 2015 by cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. American astronauts have…