Month: May 2018

Cubesats say ‘Polo’

Cubesats over Mars
(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The successful InSight launch from last weekend has pointed the new NASA Mars lander on the way to Mars, with a scheduled touch-down of November 26 2018. The launch also lofted two little Cubesats into space which are accompanying the main mission, forming a delightful caravan to the red planet. The mission for the Cubesats (MarCO-A and MarCO-B) is to observe the lander as it plummets to the surface of Mars in late November. But more importantly and in a broader sense, the briefcase-sized satellites will help refine our understanding of how to use these compact, affordable and increasingly high-performing devices to further explore our solar system.

Saturday afternoon, 5/5/2018 the first radio signals from the two little Sats were received by NASA, confirming that they are alive and well and in the midst of their new mission. The mission data which is collected during the flight of these two little pioneers should help usher in yet another new era of exploration and discovery of our solar system.

Mark your calendars now – more great Mars data coming soon this December!

Reference:
Space.com and their article on the aspects of the mission.

Mars InSight Mission to Launch Saturday Morning 4:05am PST

Mars InSight
(ASA/JPL-Caltech)

After the negativity of yesterday, this seems like a great time to revisit some positive and exciting scheduled launches for later this week! NASA’s Mars InSight mission is still on schedule to launch at 4:05am Pacific Time from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This will make it the first launch to another planet from the West Coast. The fact that we are keeping baseball-like stats on that sort of thing now should make us all very happy.

Here is a NASA page with lots of good info, including links to watch the launch live for anyone who wants to set an alarm. The good news for us night-owls is that the time difference puts this launch at 7:05am Eastern which is downright reasonable!

This launch will come only hours after the first flight of SpaceX’s new Falcon 9 Block 5 model, in theory still scheduled for this Friday at 4pm Eastern from pad 39A at Cape Canaveral. What another great week for space!

(Update) The SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 launch has been pushed to Monday, 5/7/2018 for an afternoon launch window between 4pm and 6:25pm.

Boeing’s Unhelpful Statement

Falcon Heavy
(Thom Baur / Reuters)

Boeing, angered over the impending and inevitable demise of the SLS before it is even complete, issued a petulant and misleading statement disparaging the Falcon Heavy accomplishment by SpaceX. Forgetting for a moment that their SLS is $billions over budget, and still years away from even a phase 1 test flight. Forgetting that the reality behind their claim of “most powerful rocket ever” is that the NASA’s Saturn V from the Apollo era was able to lift 118 metric tons to low Earth orbit while their still incomplete SLS booster is only rated for 70 tons, with hopes and dreams to somehow edge that higher with subsequent designs requiring even more money and time. And forgetting that SpaceX is already actively building the BFR at the Port of LA which will handily eclipse their SLS.

Forgetting all that, I think that Rep John Culberson, R-Texas said it best while recently touring aerospace contractor Oceaneering Space Systems (which is heavily involved in SLS construction) in Houston:
  “What about reusability?”

Yeah, sorry Boeing. Maybe start putting your efforts into a redesign instead of defensive press releases. The fact you are missing is that Elon Musk simply wants us to get to Mars and save mankind. He’s not interested in his stock price. He’s not interested in hollow arguments. If you were able to do it first or do it better, that would probably be a relief to him. Let’s make that next press release something positive, and something that will help move the needle in the right direction instead of distracting from a design that the shifting market has left behind.