Thomas Pesquet moves the new solar array to the P6 truss for installation. Image: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now.
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA crewmate Shane Kimbrough floated back outside the International Space Station Friday and deployed a 60-foot-long roll-out solar array, the second of six new blankets being installed to upgrade the lab’s power system and offset age-related degradation.
One of InSight’s solar arrays, on the left, is covered in dust in this picture taken in May. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Without a fortuitous whirlwind to clear dust off its solar panels, NASA’s InSight lander could end its mission on Mars within a year due to dropping power levels, the project’s chief scientist said last week.
A Falcon 9 rocket descends to a touchdown at Landing Zone 1 after a launch in August 2020. Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX is scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on a southerly coast-hugging trajectory from Cape Canaveral Tuesday to place 88 small satellites into a polar orbit. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will return to Florida’s Space Coast for the first onshore rocket landing at Cape Canaveral since December.
The Defense Department’s Space Development Agency envisions deploying a constellation of hundreds of small satellites called the “Transport Layer” for global communications, data relay, and targeting. Credit: Space Development Agency
The first five payloads from the Space Development Agency, an organization charged with rapidly infusing emerging technologies into the U.S. military’s space programs, are among more than 80 satellites awaiting launch from Cape Canaveral Tuesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission will launch 88 small satellites on the Transporter 2 rideshare mission. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
EDITOR’S NOTE: NASA TV’s live coverage of the Cygnus spacecraft’s departure from the International Space Station begins at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT).
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