• Pic of the Week: Russia’s Luna-25 Moon Station

    The image above is an artist’s rending of Russia’s Luna-25 Moon Station that was to be launched last year and is now scheduled to be launched in July 2022. It will be the first domestic spacecraft in the country’s modern history on the surface of the Moon. Luna-25 will be equipped with a soil-sampling robotic…

  • Space Quotes: Key to Successful Space Programs

    “…in order for a space program to be successful it has to be a multi-administration effort. It’s like building an aircraft carrier; that takes about 12 years and spans many administrations. So the space program has to be the same way.” –NASA Administrator Bill Nelson responding to a Time Magazine question about the lack of…

  • Movies: The Coming Moonfall

    On Friday, February 4th, you can watch another crazy science fiction movie if you are up to it, but be prepared. Moonfall has the following premise from Movieinsider.com: In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it.…

  • A Second Trojan Asteroid Accompanies the Earth

    The National Science Foundation’s NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) recently reported that the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope in Chile confirmed asteroid 2020 XL5 is in fact a second and the largest Trojan asteroid accompanying the Earth. “Trojan” means that the asteroid orbits the Sun along the same path as the Earth. The…

  • China’s Space Program: The Next Five Years

    On January 28th, China the released its five-year plan for its space program. Titled China’s Space Program: A 2021 Perspective, the paper addresses both accomplishments to date as well as how the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and China Manned Space (CMS) Program will build upon those accomplishments. China has plenty to be proud of,…

  • Recommended Reading: Kim Stanley Robinson in The New Yorker

    The January 31st edition of The New Yorker has an article written by Joshua Rothman where he interviews Kim Stanley Robinson they hike through the Sierra mountains. The article,”Best-Case Scenario,” covers a lot of ground and has its ups and downs (sorry, I could not help myself). The Sierras offer a nice setting for experiencing…

  • Should We Name the Moon’s New Crater After Mr. Musk?

    In the early days of March, a SpaceX rocket booster is expected to crash into the surface of the Moon just north of its equator. Part of a rocket launched in 2015, the booster has been floating around ever since. In general, the Moon has not been used for trash storage beyond the lunar missions. Moreover,…

  • Follow-up: Other Anti-Satellite Tests

    In an earlier posting, I pointed out that both China and Russia have left debris in orbit after conducting anti-satellite tests. To be fair, they are not alone. Back in March 2019, India also blew up one of its satellites with a ground-based missile, spreading debris and jeopardizing its own space program as well as…

  • Pic of the Week: Jupiter and the Juno Spacecraft

    The image above was taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on June 8, 2021. You can watch the full flyby video here that starts with the Juno spacecraft going past Jupiter’s moon Ganymede on June 7, 2021 before moving onto Jupiter. The violence of the storms in Jupiter’s atmosphere are smoothed into the beautiful giant marble…

  • Sidebar: Naming the James Webb Space Telescope

    Now that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is settling in at its new location 1 million miles away, we will be hearing that name for at least a decade every time NASA has new findings related to distant planets. It is worth noting that some people are not so pleased with the spacecraft’s designated…