• The Moon Landing: Imperfect, but Accomplished

    The United States is back on the Moon, even if the trip was bumpy. Plans to have pictures of the landing via the EagleCam were affected by a last minute switch to a NASA instrument that allowed Odysseus to safely land. The seems to be a fair trade, and the EagleCam can still be used…

  • Pic of the Week: Odysseus Approaching the Moon

    This week’s image come from Intuitive Machines and shows the Odysseus lunar lander orbiting the Moon just yesterday before its historic landing earlier today. After more than 50 years, the United States has returned to the Moon. Earlier today, Intuitive Machines stated: After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to…

  • Space Stories: Satellite Returns to Earth, Watching the Moon Landing, and Kuiper Belt Surprises

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —BBC: “Pioneering European ERS-2 Satellite Burns Up Over Pacific“ The two-tonne ERS-2 spacecraft burnt up in the atmosphere over the Pacific. So far, there have been no eyewitness accounts of the mission’s demise or of any debris reaching Earth’s surface. ERS-2 was one of a pair of missions launched…

  • More Terra-forming on Earth

    NASA is funding missions looking near and far to understand planets. One such study issued by scientists at Virginia Tech’s Earth Observation and Innovation (EOI) Lab, who used satellite data and ground-based GPS sensors, shows some ongoing changes here on planet Earth. In reference to this study, NASA noted: …the team reported that more than…

  • Volunteers Needed for Mars Study

    Are you a motivated U.S. citizen or permanent resident who is a non-smoker, 30-55 years old, and proficient in English for effective communication between crewmates and mission control? Are you interested in helping NASA with its Mars program? If so, you have until April 2nd to contact NASA and volunteer for its second Crew Health…

  • What is Musk Up to in Ukraine?

    Last year we learned that Elon Musk denied the Ukrainians access to Starlink when operating in the occupied portions of their country. He stated he did not want to be “complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.” And yet now we learn that Russia may be using Starlink in this same territory…

  • Television: Constellation on Apple TV+

    Apple TV+ has a new space station-related drama called Constellation premiering February 21. It sounds pretty eery, but at least this trauma is more at the personal level rather than the planetary level, compared to other recent space station stories. Here’s the basic story from Apple TV+: Constellation” stars Noomi Rapace as Jo — an…

  • Space Quote: A New Threat to Astronauts

    “And so, any capability that could disrupt that and that could therefore have some impact on services here on Earth and across the world should be of concern to anybody, I think. And including the fact that we have astronauts in — oftentimes in — in low orbit that — that could be at risk…

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

    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…

  • 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…