Tag: NASA

SpaceX launches Starship on giant rocket’s first flight to orbit

Posted on by Leave a comment

SpaceX launched the company’s Super Heavy-Starship on its first flight to orbit Monday — an abbreviated three-hour mission that marked a major step toward perfecting the world’s most powerful rocket for commercial flights and NASA moon missions. One of the Starship upper stage’s six Raptor engines shut down early during the climb to an initially suborbital trajectory. After assessing telemetry, Elon Musk’s flight control team decided the spacecraft was otherwise healthy and a second engine firing using a single Raptor engine completed the climb to orbit.

Right after that, the Starship upper stage deployed 26 third-generation Starlink internet satellites that will join the company’s ever-growing constellation in the first use of the new rocket to launch operational satellites in low-Earth orbit. After the satellites were away, SpaceX controllers opted to bring the Starship back to Earth well ahead of schedule, ending the mission three hours after launch with a Pacific Ocean splashdown north of Hawaii just before noon EDT. For NASA, getting the Starship into orbit and back are critical steps on the road to perfecting the system in time to support a planned Artemis moon landing, using a variant of the Starship, in 2028. A future moon mission will require multiple Super Heavy-Starship tanker flights to fuel the lander for its flight to the moon before docking with a NASA Orion crew capsule in lunar orbit, picking up two astronauts and carrying them down to the surface and back.

“Congrats @SpaceX!,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a post on the social media platform X. “Gorgeous launch, getting Ship to orbit and managing every step in a safe, responsible, and especially inspirational way. @NASA, along with the rest of the interested public, is excited to help where we can and for Starship missions to become routine!” Few doubt SpaceX will eventually get the Super Heavy-Starship flying reliably, but it’s not yet known whether the company will be able to meet NASA’s ambitious 2028 target date for the Artemis IV moon landing.

SpaceX Starship mission plan

Monday’s mission got off to a spectacular start. The Super Heavy booster’s 33 methane-burning Raptor engines ignited with a rush of flame at 8:49 a.m. EDT, quickly propelling the 400-foot-tall rocket away from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site on the Texas Gulf Coast. The Super Heavy first stage booster, generating some 16 million pounds of thrust — twice the power of NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket — rapidly accelerated as it consumed propellant and lost weight, climbing out of the thick lower atmosphere along a southeasterly trajectory. One of the engines shut down early, but the Super Heavy was designed to reach space despite the loss of one or two engines.

Two minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff, the rest of the first stage engines began shutting down while the six Raptors powering the Starship upper stage began firing up in a “hot staging” maneuver seconds before the booster separated and fell away. While the Starship continued toward space, the Super Heavy booster flipped around, restarted its engines to reverse course and then flew itself back to the Texas Gulf Coast. A second engine apparently shut down early during the so-called boost-back burn, but the huge rocket was able to execute a seemingly normal vertical splashdown a few miles off shore. During the most recent previous test flight, three engines suffered problems that prevented a full-duration boost-back burn and only eight of 13 engines fired for the landing burn. The result was a “hard” splashdown.

SpaceX implemented multiple upgrades and software changes to ensure a successful return this time around. The first stage is designed to be captured by giant mechanical arms on its launch gantry, a feat SpaceX has accomplished four times to date. But until upgrades and improvements have been tested, SpaceX has opted to stick with ocean splashdowns as a safety precaution. The Starship upper stage also is designed to be captured back at the pad after a trip to space and back, but that milestone has not yet been attempted. The Starship upper stage launched Monday climbed into a 180-mile-high orbit with two engine firings. The first, ending a minute after the booster’s splashdown, was intended to put the Starship onto a sub-orbital trajectory similar to past flights that would result in a safe splashdown even if SpaceX lost control of the rocket.

Despite the premature shutdown of one engine, the Starship was cleared to proceed with the orbit-insertion burn and eight-and-a-half minutes after that, a Pez-like dispenser in the rocket’s nose began launching 26 third-generation Starlink internet satellites, each with 10 times the capacity of the previous generation. The mission was initially expected to last six orbits, leading to a splashdown off the coast of Chile around 6:40 p.m. But with the Starlink satellites safely on their way, mission managers opted to bring the ship down early with a Pacific Ocean splashdown north of Hawaii. As with earlier test flights, the Starship fell back into the discernible atmosphere belly-first, rapidly slowing in a fireball of electrically charged plasma before using its fins and flaps to control its orientation during the descent.

As the ship neared the ocean, three Raptor’s re-ignited, the spacecraft flipped up to vertical and settled to a controlled, tail first splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 11:57 a.m. EDT.  As is usually the case with ocean splashdowns, the rocket tipped over, fell onto its side and exploded as residual propellants ignited.

Future role in Artemis moon program

SpaceX currently has two Super Heavy-Starship pads at its Starbase facility in Texas and three more under construction in Florida, including one at historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center and the others at the adjacent Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX plans its initial launch from Florida late this year or early next. And multiple pads will be needed. SpaceX is building a variant of the Starship to serve as a lander for Artemis astronauts. For moon missions, the company will need to launch up to 15 or so Super Heavy-Starship tankers to refuel the company’s lunar lander before it can head for the moon to await the arrival of astronauts in a Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsule. From there, the 165-foot-tall lander will carry two crew members down to the surface, landing vertically near the moon’s south pole.

The astronauts then will ride an external elevator down to the surface and back up again when their exploration is complete. With the first such landing targeted for 2028, SpaceX must ramp up its Super Heavy-Starship test schedule to get the vehicle certified for human spaceflight and to demonstrate the reliability required to safely launch more than a dozen tankers within days of the lander’s launch. Many observers with past experience at NASA and elsewhere in the aerospace industry doubt SpaceX can deliver a tested “human landing system” Starship variant by 2028.

NASA is hedging its bets, funding development of an alternative lander designed by Blue Origin. During a test flight in low Earth orbit next year — Artemis III — NASA plans to launch four astronauts in an Orion capsule who will attempt to rendezvous and dock with prototype landers launched separately by SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Source: SpaceX launches Starship on giant rocket’s first flight to orbit – CBS News

Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.
Jeremiah 33:3

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s next “great observatory,” launches into space

Posted on by Leave a comment

Using a donated Hubble-class mirror originally built for a spy satellite, NASA’s Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday on a $4.3 billion mission to open a new window on the universe, taking wide-angle, ultra-sharp images that would require a half million 4K TVs to show in full. Put another way, officials say a single full-resolution image from Roman’s 300-megapixel wide-field camera would cover 45 city blocks or the entirety of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. And it will collect that data faster than any previous NASA spacecraft. The Hubble Space Telescope has beamed back about 172 terabytes of data over 30 years while Roman will downlink a staggering 2,500 terabytes over its five-year primary mission.

Put yet another way, Roman’s sensitive wide-field camera and advanced detectors will scan broad swaths of the cosmos 1,000 times faster than Hubble, collecting as much data in one month as its older cousin could manage in a century. A “sheer powerhouse” of a telescope The flood of data is expected to shed new light on the nature of “dark matter, dark energy and the structure of the universe itself and accelerate the … discovery of potentially habitable planets outside our solar system,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “Roman will give the Earth a new atlas of the universe,” he added. NASA science chief Niki Fox described the telescope as “a sheer powerhouse” and “literally a speed machine.” “The speed at which we’ll be scanning the sky, delivering vast amounts of data and returning results will be at an unprecedented rate, never done before,” Fox added.

The 42-foot-long, 18,000-pound telescope is named for the late Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer, who championed the value of space telescopes throughout her career and was instrumental in the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. As such, she is often referred to as “the mother of Hubble.” The new telescope launched atop a triple-core SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at the Kennedy Space Center at 7:26 a.m. EDT. It is bound for Lagrange Point No. 2 (L2), a gravitational eddy of sorts about a million miles on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun, where it will remain in place with minimal use of fuel. The James Webb Space Telescope is stationed in the same region for the same reason.

From the vantage point of L2, Roman will study the effects of dark matter, the mysterious substance that pervades the universe, holds galaxies together and accounts for most of the mass in the cosmos, acting as a brake on the expansion of space itself, which is carrying galaxies farther and farther apart. At the same time, Roman will work to gain statistically significant insights into the nature of the equally mysterious dark energy, a repulsive force presumably present since the Big Bang that became dominant about 5 billion years ago as the universe expanded and thinned out. Ever since, the expansion of the cosmos has been speeding up. A new understanding of the universe Roman may help resolve a conflict between the strength of dark energy in the very early universe, as measured by probes studying the remnant 3-degree glow of the Big Bang’s immediate aftermath, compared to Hubble observations of a specific type of supernova that indicate a slightly different value.

When the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, estimates for the age of the universe, from its Big Bang birth to the present, ranged from about 10 billion years to 20 billion years. Hubble was able to determine the speed of that expansion — the Hubble Constant — and thus the time that has passed since the Big Bang to an accuracy within 1%: 13.8 billion years. But detailed studies by researchers using spacecraft studying the afterglow of the bang — the 3-degree cosmic background radiation — came up with a different number. The mismatch — known as “the Hubble Tension” — suggests some critical element is missing in the current understanding of the universe and the forces driving its evolution. “We’re seeing evidence that the Hubble constant, as inferred from very early times, is not consistent with the Hubble constant that we measure closer to now, which is telling us that the model that connects those two things might not be quite right,” said project scientist Julie McEnery.

“We have a slight tension in our expectations for how structure should grow and evolve.” That “slight tension” indicates a potentially serious flaw in the standard model of cosmology, the current understanding of how the universe, and everything in it, has evolved. It might even indicate dark energy is not the constant force it is thought to be, but might somehow change over time. “We’re probably not going to confirm the standard model of how the universe works,” McEnery said. “We’re very likely to demonstrate that our standard model is wrong, and to set ourselves on a path to figuring out how does our universe really work. It’s hard to get [a better question than] the fundamental nature of your universe!” Roman’s wide-field camera is one of two instruments aboard the spacecraft. The other is an advanced coronagraph equipped with deformable mirrors that can block out the glare of a star to detect the vastly dimmer light reflected from the atmosphere of an orbiting planet.

Roman’s coronagraph is expected to detect Jupiter-size planets orbiting Earth-like stars. By analyzing that reflected light, researchers may be able to tease out the elemental composition of those atmospheres. “We think that we will be capable of detecting exoplanets that are about 100 million times fainter than their stars, and with that capability, we are hoping to see … a Jupiter twin around a nearby star using visible light reflected from its cloud tops for the first time,” said Vanessa Bailey, the Roman coronagraph instrument scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Then, we can use that light to study the composition of its atmosphere.” About 6,200 exoplanets have been discovered to date using smaller instruments like NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. Roman is expected to discover more than 100,000 exoplanets over 18 months of observations. It will take three to four months to “commission” the spacecraft, calibrating its instruments and testing its myriad subsystems before science operations can begin in earnest.

The solar-powered Roman is built around a 7.9-foot-wide, 410-pound primary mirror — one of two donated to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office, the secretive agency that manages many of the nation’s high-end spy satellites. The mirrors, the same size as Hubble’s, were built for a classified project that later was canceled. But both were ground to near-perfect prescriptions, allowing them to look down and focus on Earth, not out into deep space. NASA has no plans or funding to utilize the second mirror, focusing instead on building a single “flagship” observatory. The donated mirror’s curvature, smoothness and polish had to be modified to ensure the desired astronomical prescription, and the telescope’s trusses and other components had to be altered to enable them to withstand the ultra-low temperatures at Lagrange Point 2. “I think our engineering team thinks of it as we received a set of well-tested parts that included highly calibrated optical systems,” said project manager Jackie Townsend.

“But we really had to sort of start over and make it our own to work at our operating temperatures.” In the end, the project came in ahead of schedule and under budget. But even with an effectively “free” primary mirror, the telescope will still cost taxpayers some $4.3 billion to build, launch and operate for its five-year primary mission.

A wide view of the sky

Three “core” surveys are planned over the course of Roman’s planned five-year mission. The High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey will focus on a huge swath of the sky looking out of the plane of the Milky Way — 12% of the entire sky — avoiding obscuring star clouds and dust marking the galactic disk. The goal is to catalog the distribution of a billion or more galaxies. Those data, collected over 520 days, will help researchers better understand how dark matter and energy have combined over cosmic time to drive the evolution of structure in the universe. The High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey will require 180 days of observations over two years.

The telescope will repeatedly image the same regions in an area of 90 full moons to make movies capturing short-duration events ranging from supernova blasts to the radiation emitted when stars fall into black holes. McEnery described such transient events as “things that go bump in the night.” The Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey will focus on the core of the Milky Way, the central bulge of stars, gas and dust where a supermassive black hole affects the trajectories of nearby stars. Imaging across an area spanning 8.5 full moons, Roman is expected to find tens of thousands of exoplanets by watching hundreds of millions of stars and looking for signs of “microlensing,” a phenomenon in which the light of a background star is enhanced, or magnified, by the gravity of an intervening object. Mission managers have also left room for “general astrophysics” topics not covered in Roman’s three core surveys.

The first such program, known as the Galactic Plane Survey, will monitor the disk of the Milky Way from one side to the other, covering an area of 3,455 full moons. Some 20 billion stars will be mapped along the way, providing the most complete portrait of the galaxy and its structure ever captured. “What makes me most excited about Roman is the discovery potential,” McEnery said. “With 2 billion galaxies, we’ll have 2,000 objects that are one in a million. We’ll be exploring patches of sky as a function of time with exquisite sensitivity. We’ll find new things that go bump in the night. “I very much hope, and in fact expect, that the most exciting science from Roman will be a surprise, something we couldn’t predict. And that will set the stage for the next deeper set of questions for future missions to address.”

Source: Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s next “great observatory,” launches into space – CBS News

This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
Zechariah 4:6

Powerful earthquake shakes Panama

A major earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 has struck Panama, according to the US Geological Survey. Local media are reporting structural damage in some parts of the country.…

Keep reading

Plague in Russia?

Russian authorities have sought to allay global worries over the death of a young woman who worked at a Siberian anti-plague laboratory. But moves to isolate her contacts and introduce…

Keep reading

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

NASA plans unpiloted Starliner test flight after astronauts got stuck at space station in 2024

Posted on by Leave a comment

NASA is working with Boeing to launch an unpiloted Starliner capsule in the December-to-January time frame to test upgrades and improvements ordered in the wake of a 2024 mission that suffered multiple propulsion system failures, stranding two astronauts on the space station for more than nine months.  If the unpiloted test flight goes well, NASA and Boeing hope to launch a piloted Starliner flight in the mid-2028 time frame, officials said Monday, incorporating redesigned propulsion system valves, more robust subsystems and other modifications expected to prevent the sort of failures that occurred in 2024.

Veteran astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg will command the mission. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule is the only currently operational U.S. astronaut ferry ship. NASA wants to bring Boeing back into the mix as soon as possible to ensure a sustained U.S. capability to carry astronauts and researchers to the International Space Station through its planned retirement in 2030. Equally important, NASA managers want to make sure an American spacecraft will be available to support flights to commercial space stations later in the 2030s, after SpaceX phases out its Falcon 9 rockets and Crew Dragon spacecraft. “It’s always been the Commercial Crew Program’s goal to have two crew transportation providers to ensure commercial access to low Earth orbit,” said Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s low-Earth orbit operations.

“As SpaceX has publicly stated, the Dragon and the Falcon won’t be around forever. Certifying Boeing’s Starliner is important for both supporting ISS and also for follow-on future commercial destinations,” Weigel said. Said Boeing in a post on X: “Together with @NASA, we’re making Starliner hardware enhancements and adding resources for human spaceflight certification. These changes support the spacecraft as a long-term provider of crewed missions to low Earth orbit.”  Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams, both now retired from NASA, blasted off aboard a Starliner on June 5, 2024, for what was billed as a 10-day test flight to the International Space Station. It was the first piloted launch of a Starliner after two uncrewed test flights, both of which had problems. During their rendezvous with the space station, Wilmore and Williams ran into multiple propulsion system helium leaks and thruster failures.

They were able to dock, but their return to Earth was repeatedly delayed while NASA and Boeing worked to resolve the technical issues. An independent review board later classified the propulsion mishaps as a “close call” that put the astronauts in jeopardy. When all was said and done, the Starliner returned to Earth without its crew three months after launch. Wilmore and Williams stayed an additional six months aboard the station in order to hitch a ride home aboard a Crew Dragon on March 18, 2025. All told, the 10-day flight they expected ended up lasting 286 days. An independent review board identified three major problems with the Starliner, along with a host of less severe shortcomings that had to be addressed.

During the rendezvous with the space station, five thrusters in the capsule’s service module failed, resulting in a temporary loss of full maneuverability. The failures were blamed on trouble with Teflon “poppets” extruding in propellant valves that restricted flow. A thruster in the Starliner crew module failed during the ship’s unpiloted descent to Earth, leaving the ship without redundancy in a critical system, the board said. The third major issue involved helium leaks in the propulsion system pressurization plumbing. In addition, the review board concluded, the Starliner design did not have the required redundancy in the system responsible for the rocket firing needed to drop the spacecraft out of orbit. Boeing said all of those issues are being addressed, along with operational changes intended to further reduce unexpected heating that contributed to the thruster problems.

The company is replacing the valves in all 12 crew module maneuvering thrusters, along with implementing measures to prevent erosion. The service module thruster poppets are being redesigned. A faster flight data recorder is being added to more precisely measure thruster performance, along with upgraded batteries and improved parachutes. NASA and Boeing now plan to launch an unpiloted mission — Starliner 1 — in December or January that will rendezvous and dock with the space station. Along the way, flight controllers will thoroughly exercise the thrusters and their pressurization systems, putting the fixes to the test. “Our goal is to fly Starliner One as soon as the vehicle and the team is ready,” Weigel said. “We really need to see how those thermal modifications perform on the spacecraft, and we intend to put the propulsion system through its paces.”

“We’ll do a series of on-orbit demonstrations and tests, stress the thrusters, and we’ll take that set of data coming out of the mission combined with redesign, and that’s what will inform the final crewed vehicle certification,” she continued. “We will fly the Starliner One mission with stricter performance parameters in place when we’re flying closer to [the] space station.” “Long term, we are committed to Starliner certification and ensuring commercial crew access to low Earth orbit,” Weigel added. The Starliner has relied on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rockets for the ride to space, but only a half dozen of the venerable boosters remain in ULA’s inventory. As a result, NASA plans to help get ULA’s new Vulcan rocket certified to carry astronauts aboard Starliner capsules.

For its part, ULA said in a post on X that “we are already working towards the Starliner-1 mission and look forward to our continued work with @BoeingSpace and @NASA to integrate and certify our #VulcanRocket for human spaceflight.” “We are committed to being a long-term launch provider of human spaceflight capability to low Earth orbit,” ULA added.

Source: NASA plans unpiloted Starliner test flight after astronauts got stuck at space station in 2024 – CBS News

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.
Jeremiah 29:12

2 Timothy 3:12 

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted Paul was reminding Timothy that following Christ does not guarantee an easy life.…

Keep reading

John 15:18–20

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as…

Keep reading

Galatians 1:6-10

“When truth becomes negotiable, faith becomes vulnerable so know the Gospel, stand on God’s Word, and seek His approval above the world’s applause.” “I am astonished…

Keep reading

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

Can meteorites be recovered from Cape Cod Bay? Harvard professor says “it’s just like a fishing expedition”

Posted on by Leave a comment
photo of shooting star during night time

The Big Bang may have started the universe, but the big boom off the coast of Massachusetts has started a viral tsunami. A meteor exploded over the Cape Cod Bay causing a sonic boom that could be heard and felt from states away. “It was moving at 100 times the speed of sound when it exploded as a result of friction on air,” said Avi Loeb, a Harvard professor and an astrophysicist and theorist. Loeb said the meteor exploded at an altitude approaching 40 miles in the air. NASA says it was five feet in diameter and was traveling 42,000 miles per hour. “The explosion released 300 tons of a TNT equivalent amount of energy which amounts to 2% of the Hiroshima atomic bomb energy,” said Loeb.

NASA said meteorites landed in Cape Cod Bay, and radar data predominantly shows they ranged from 40g to multiple kilograms. Believe it or not, meteorite landings are common, but the odds of being struck by a fragment on land are slim. “Such explosions happen every couple of weeks on the entire earth,” Loeb said. “There’s an impact of a 1-meter scale rock every couple of weeks. Most of earth, 71%, is covered with oceans, so we don’t hear about it.” The Dolan family in Gloucester, Massachusetts is the exception. They spoke to WBZ last year, when an object struck the side of their home and shattered into pieces. The rocky material smelled of sulfur.

Source: Can meteorites be recovered from Cape Cod Bay? Harvard professor says “it’s just like a fishing expedition” – CBS Boston

You shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.
Deuteronomy 5:33

Isaiah 45:2

“I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, This verse reminds us that…

Keep reading

Proverbs 21:23

Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble. This verse emphasizes that people who carefully watch what they say will protect themselves from serious trouble. “Guarding your…

Keep reading

Slow to Speak: The Secret to Wise Reactions

Talk less, listen more, because wisdom speaks after it understands, not before. If you want stronger relationships and real influence, master this: control your tongue, calm your anger, and lead with…

Keep reading

Psalm 5:8

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me. In the verse David is praying in the morning while people who hate him…

Keep reading

Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.

Get the latest news on the Artemis II Moon Mission

Posted on by Leave a comment
space shuttle external tank with solid rocket boosters

Stay informed with the latest updates on the Atriums 2 Moon Mission, a groundbreaking step in modern space exploration. This will help you find real-time news, mission milestones, and launch details.

Source: Moon | Fox News

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4

🚀To the Moon and Back; Artemis II crew begins “crazy first day” in space after exhilarating launch

Posted on by Leave a comment
close up of historical us rocket exhibit

With an exhilarating launch behind them, NASA’s Artemis II astronauts are turning their attention to the next big challenge of their historic mission: a “crazy first day” in space.    The crew is spending about 24 hours orbiting the Earth while they put their Orion capsule through its paces before finally heading for the moon. Their spectacular launch Wednesday evening marked the first piloted moonshot since the end of the Apollo program 53 years ago.  

Source: Artemis II crew begins “crazy first day” in space after exhilarating launch – CBS News

He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Mark 16:16