Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Virgin Orbit LauncherOne rocket. The air-launched rocket will climb into orbit with seven small satellite payloads after release from a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft southwest of Los Angeles. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Virgin’s live webcast begins at 9:45 p.m. PDT (12:45 a.m. EDT; 0445 GMT).
SpaceX’s 27th mission of the year lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 5:04 p.m. EDT (2104 GMT) Wednesday. Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography
SpaceX closed out the first half of 2022 with its 27th mission of the year, powering a commercial television broadcasting satellite into orbit for SES on a Falcon 9 rocket as the company is poised to break its annual launch record in the coming weeks.
The Falcon 9 rocket delivered the SES 22 communications into an elliptical, or oval-shaped, transfer orbit on the way to an operating perch in geostationary orbit, where the spacecraft will circle Earth over the equator, matching its velocity to the planet’s rotation.
SES 22, built by Thales Alenia Space, is the first of five new C-band television broadcasting satellites SES plans to launch this year. All will take off from Cape Canaveral, with three assigned to two SpaceX Falcon 9 missions — including SES 22 launched Wednesday — and two satellites booked to fly on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in the late August or September timeframe.
The satellites will help SES reconfigure its television broadcast services to a narrower segment of the C-band radio spectrum after the Federal Communications Commission approved a plan to repurpose some of the spectrum previously used for television and radio programming to terrestrial 5G cellular broadband networks.
“We are thrilled with the successful launch of SES 22, thanks to our partners at Thales Alenia Space and SpaceX,” said Steve Collar, CEO of SES. “The launch of SES 22, together with other upcoming C-band satellite launches scheduled this year, will enable us to continue providing the high-quality services that our customers have been accustomed to over the last several decades, while freeing up spectrum that will enable the US to rapidly unlock the promise of 5G.”
Mapping the interior of the ice giants is difficult, to say the least. Not only are they far away and therefore harder to observe, but their constant ice cover makes it extremely hard to detect what lies underneath. So scientists must devise more ingenious ways to see what’s inside them. A team from the University of Idaho, Cal Tech, Reed College, and the University of Arizona think they might have come up with a way – to look at the structure of Neptunes’ and Uranus’ rings.
This isn’t the first technique scientists have used, though. Previous efforts have attempted to use the common technique of photometry to detect oscillations on the planet’s surface. Those oscillations can then be correlated to the density of particular parts of the planet’s interior. While the technique worked well for Jupiter, the photometry data we have of the ice giants so far have proved insufficient to determine the same density profiles.
An alternative is using gravitational oscillations within the planet’s surface. In particular, there is a type of oscillation pattern known as a “normal mode.” This oscillation pattern happens when all parts of a system begin oscillating with the same sinusoidal frequency. And the gravitational effects of normal mode oscillations in the planet’s interior can be felt outside and reflected in the rings themselves.
UT video discussing planetary rings in the solar systemIt also isn’t the first time patterns in a planet’s rings have been used to calculate its internal density. Saturn has a better-understood ring system than Uranus or Neptune, the two ice giants with known ring systems. Scientists have been performing seismological analyses on the Saturnian ring system for years using data from Voyager and Cassini. The result is a better understanding of some of the normal modes of the planet’s interior and, therefore, an estimate of the makeup of the planet’s core and the rotation rate of the bulk of its material.
Neptune and Uranus each have a series of different rings, though they are not as well studied as Saturn’s. Some of those rings of which are corralled by shepherd moons. But according to the new paper, the same density reflections of resonance waves evident in Saturn’s rings are likely present in the ice giant’s ring systems as well.
Fogs, plumes and other types of Martian clouds are getting the crowdsourcing treatment.
When NASA sent the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to the red planet in 2006, the spacecraft took an instrument with it called CRISM—Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars. CRISM’s job is to produce maps of Mars’ surface mineralogy. It’s been an enormous success, but unfortunately, the loss of its last cryocooler in 2017 means the spectrometer can only undertake limited observations.
But CRISM is going out with a bang, creating one final image of the surface of Mars that NASA will release in batches over the next six months.
“It’s effectively a whole new data set that will fuel a second wave of discoveries about Mars’ surface composition.”
The new map will cover 86% of Mars’ surface. It’ll be 5.6 gigapixels in size and will reveal the locations of dozens of important minerals in 72 colours. Since many minerals form in the presence of water, the locations of certain minerals reveal evidence of Mars’ watery past. The new map will also help plan future missions and choose the most promising locations for rovers to visit.
Jezero Crater on Mars was the landing site for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. The colours in this image show surface minerals detected by CRISM, which helped identify the crater as a desirable landing site. The green colour represents carbonates, which are good at preserving fossils. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUWe already have the first portions of the new map. The final version of the map will contain about 51,000 540-kilometre-long strips, contained in 1764 tiles. In mid-June, NASA released 48 of those tiles, and they cover five of Mars’ most scientifically interesting regions.
A new study finds DART's impact could be stronger than expected.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands on pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station before launch with the SES 22 communications satellite. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now
SpaceX is preparing to launch a television broadcasting satellite Wednesday for SES, with liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral set for 5:04 p.m. EDT (2104 GMT).
There’s a two-hour window for SpaceX’s launch Wednesday, and the official launch weather outlook predicts an 80% chance of favorable weather for liftoff.
SpaceX ground crews rolled the Falcon 9 rocket and its commercial satellite payload to pad 40 earlier this week, and raised it vertical in the launch mount at pad 40 for final checkouts. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher will be filled with a million pounds of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants in the final 35 minutes of the countdown Wednesday.
If weather and technical parameters are all “green” for launch, the nine Merlin main engines on the first stage booster will come to life with the help of an ignition fluid called triethylaluminum/triethylborane, or TEA-TEB. Once the engines are at full throttle, hydraulic clamps will open to release the Falcon 9 for its climb into space.
The nine main engines will produce 1.7 million pounds of thrust for about two-and-a-half minutes, propelling the Falcon 9 and the SES 22 communications satellite into the upper atmosphere. Then the booster stage — tail number B1073 in SpaceX’s fleet — will shut down and separate from the Falcon 9’s upper stage.
An Indian rocket will launch three satellites on Thursday morning (June 30), and you can watch the action live.
China has successfully conducted a hot-fire test of a new engine that will help power a next-generation rocket capable of launching astronauts to the moon.
Northrup Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft conducted a successful reboost of the International Space Station over the past weekend, on Saturday, June 25, 2022. The Cygnus NG-17 “Piers Sellers” is the first US-based spacecraft to provide a substantial orbital adjustment to the ISS since the space shuttles retired in 2011. Russia’s Progress cargo spacecraft has been the primary source for station reboosts, attitude control, and debris avoidance maneuvers.
“This reboost of the ISS using Cygnus adds a critical capability to help maintain and support the space station,” said Steve Krein, vice president, civil and commercial space, tactical space systems, Northrop Grumman, in a press release. “It also demonstrates the enormous capability Cygnus offers the ISS and future space exploration efforts.”
Cygnus fired its gimbaled delta velocity engine for a total of 301 seconds, raising the station’s perigee by about 0.8 kilometers (1/2 mile) and its apogee by nearly 0.2 kilometers (.1 mile) for a test of “this enhanced capability for a standard service for NASA,” Northrup Grumman said. “This Cygnus mission is the first to feature this enhanced capability as a standard service for NASA.”
Cygnus had been docked to the ISS since February and now has departed, leaving on June 28. Back in 2018, the ninth Cygnus resupply mission conducted a test of the reboost capability by conducting a short 50 second burn of its main engine, raising the Station’s altitude by 90 meters (295 feet). The thruster firing on June 25 was actually the second attempt to raise the station’s orbit with the Cygnus NG-17, as on June 20, the maneuver was aborted after just five seconds. Northrup Grumman said the abort was triggered automatically and came as a “precautionary measure.” An investigation by engineers showed that the observed parameters were as expected and acceptable.
A previous Cygnus (OA-8) spacecraft is pictured after it had been grappled with the Canadarm2 robotic arm in 2017. Credit: NASAHaving US capabilities to provide propulsion to the ISS came to the fore as an issue following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. After sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and other countries who are part of the space station consortium, thinly-veiled threats by Dmitry Rogozin, the Director-General of the Russian State Space Corporation (Roscosmos) indicated that Russia might be terminating its cooperation in space; he also suggested the country might use the ISS as a weapon. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti also showed a CGI video depicting the Russian modules detaching from the ISS. Other volleys on social media from Rogozin and others made for a tense few months, but tempers seemed to have cooled lately.
A sungazing spacecraft captured the moon passing in front of the face of the sun Wednesday (June 29).
Study reveals why mysterious gamma-ray bursts appear to blink and suggests that these mysterious phenomena might be much rarer than astronomers thought.
European technology that allows satellite navigation signals to safely guide aircraft down for landing in the majority of Europe’s airports will now be put to use across Africa and the Indian Ocean. ASECNA, the Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar, and ESA today signed an agreement to deploy a Satellite-based Augmentation System (SBAS) across a service region of more than 16.5 million sq. km, one and a half times the size of Europe’s coverage area.
A galactic nova flared briefly into naked eye visibility for a day, before vanishing from sight.
Some stars burn bright but brief. These transitory novae pepper the sky, with one flaring into naked eye visibility every few years… but it was a recent brief appearance of just such a ‘new star’ that gave astronomers a chance to probe the secrets of the Universe.
Japanese amateur astronomer Seidji Ueda was the first to raise the alarm worldwide. Amateurs are always on the hunt for galactic novae, as it’s one of the key fields where they can contribute to real science. The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) has been the key clearinghouse for novae observations and light curves since 1911.
The discovery was made on the night of June 21st, 2021. The ‘star’ was a galactic nova in the northern constellation of Hercules the Hero, right along its border with Sagitta and Aquila, just off the galactic plane. Soon, the nova had a name: V1674 Herculis (V1674 Her or Nova Herculis 2021).
The location of Nova Herculis 2021 in the sky. Credit: Stellarium.Generally, novae reach a peak brightness for several days or weeks before fading from view. Recent memorable novae include Nova Delphini 2013 and Nova Centauri 2013. Such ‘new stars’ can give familiar constellations a decidedly strange look.
Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket under the wing of the company’s Boeing 747 carrier aircraft. Credit: Virgin Orbit
The first nighttime flight of Virgin Orbit’s commercial air-launched rocket is on track for Wednesday night off the coast of California, carrying seven small payloads into orbit on a mission for the U.S. military’s Space Test Program.
The mission will be the fifth flight of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket. The company, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, has accomplished three consecutive successful missions since the first LauncherOne test flight failed to reach orbit.
The fifth LauncherOne mission will be the Virgin Orbit’s launch at night. The company wants to demonstrate its ability to conduct nighttime launch operations before they are required on future missions. The launch Wednesday night is not constrained to a specific launch window, and could fly in daytime or nighttime, according to Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit’s chief executive officer.
The nighttime launch is “expanding the envelope” of Virgin Orbit’s capabilities, giving the ground team and flight crew practice to run through their procedures at night.
“We have some of those (night launches) on our books that are required, and we want to make sure that we do them first in our backyard here in Mojave,” Hart said in a pre-launch conference call with reporters.
How monster black holes overpower their much larger host galaxies.
The Sun isn't exactly your typical star, but its light, warmth, and overall stability has helped lead to life on Earth.
The post Meet The Sun, Our Home Star appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
The Pentagon continues to develop its new hypersonic interceptor.
United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket inside the Vertical Integration Facility earlier this month. Credit: United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance teams at Cape Canaveral are preparing to roll an Atlas 5 rocket to its launch pad Wednesday, moving the launcher into position for liftoff Thursday evening with a pair of geostationary satellites for the U.S. Space Force.
The rollout is expected to begin around 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT), when the Atlas 5 is expected to emerge from the Vertical Integration Facility south of the launch pad. The 196-foot-tall (59.7-meter-tall) rocket will ride a mobile launch platform along rail tracks to Space Launch Complex 41, the East Coast home of Atlas 5 launch operations.
The 1,800-foot (550-meter) trip should take about one hour, with the Atlas 5 and its mobile launch platform driven by a pair of trackmobile locomotives. The rocket and its platform weigh about 1.8 million pounds during the rollout to the pad.
Once in position at pad 41, the Atlas 5 will be connected to propellant loading lines and other ground systems. ULA’s launch team plans to load rocket-grade RP-1 kerosene fuel into the Atlas 5’s first stage Wednesday afternoon. The kerosene will feed the rocket’s Russian-made RD-180 main engine, in combination with super-cold liquid oxygen to be pumped into the Atlas 5 during the countdown Thursday.
Liftoff Thursday is set for 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT), the opening of a two-hour launch window. There is a 60% chance of favorable weather for Thursday’s launch window, according to the Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron.
SpaceX will launch a commercial communications satellite and land a rocket at sea on Wednesday (June 29), and you can watch the action live.
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