Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  3 months ago
It is not easy to turn a big #bureaucracy, and there will undoubtedly be friction and pain points. But the opportunity here is enticing: #NASA should not be competing with things that private industry is already doing better, such as launching big rockets. Rather, it should find difficult research and development projects at the edge of the possible. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/how-did-the-ceo-of-an-online-payments-firm-become-the-nominee-to-lead-nasa

#SLS#Artemis

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  3 months ago

Content Warning

The incoming Trump administration will certainly keep #NASA's goal of landing people on the Moon, but without the budgetary 💰 burden of the #SLS rocket. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/trumps-nominee-to-lead-nasa-favors-a-full-embrace-of-commercial-space
Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  3 months ago

Content Warning

It is not easy to turn a big #bureaucracy, and there will undoubtedly be friction and pain points. But the opportunity here is enticing: #NASA should not be competing with things that private industry is already doing better, such as launching big rockets. Rather, it should find difficult research and development projects at the edge of the possible. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/how-did-the-ceo-of-an-online-payments-firm-become-the-nominee-to-lead-nasa

#SLS#Artemis

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  last month

Content Warning

Prof Logsdon* expects big changes under #Trump, Mr #Musk and Mr #Isaacman: scrapping programmes, closing NASA centres and more contracting out to #SpaceX, #BlueOrigin and other private sector firms. "There is a delicate balance between the interests of #NASA, #Congress and the #WhiteHouse."

Mr Isaacman has called the #SLS "outrageously expensive" and said that the major aerospace contractors are "incentivised to be economically #inefficient". https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn93797z2dpo

* https://www.planetary.org/profiles/jon-logsdon

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  4 weeks ago

Content Warning

#SpaceX has developed two heavy lift rockets in the last decade, and #BlueOrigin just launched #NewGlenn. Each of these rockets is at least partially reusable ♻️ and flies at less than one-tenth 💵 the cost of the #SLS rocket 💰 https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/boeing-has-informed-its-employees-that-nasa-may-cancel-sls-contracts

#Boeing#NASA

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  2 months ago

Content Warning

📆 2025 preview :

• #Moon 🌙 deliveries by #Astrobotic, #IntuitiveMachines and #Firefly Aerospace.
• #SPHEREx will create a map of the universe 🌌
• #ESA's 🇪🇺 #SpaceRider #spaceplane orbital test flight
• #Japan's 🇯🇵 lunar lander and micro-rover
• #Tianwen2 🇨🇳 collects samples from a #NEA ☄️
• #BepiColombo at #Mercury
• #EuropaClipper at #Mars
• #NASA’s #Lucy #asteroid flyby
• #JUICE at #Venus
https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/space-missions-coming-in-2025

• #SierraSpace#DreamChaser test mission to the #ISShttps://www.planetary.org/articles/calendar-of-space-events-2025

Simeon Schmauß
Simeon Schmauß  ·  last month

Content Warning

The Perseverance rover captured some pretty massive dust devils earlier today. That large one in the foreground was at least 300m high.
EDIT: corrected height estimate from 500 to 300m.
https://flic.kr/p/2qHbPLV

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Simeon Schmauß

#planetaryscience #mars #mars2020 #nasa #perseverance #dustdevil

20 frame animation showing a mostly flat terrain on Mars with a couple craters and a few hills towards the horizon. Three dust devils can be seen, a large one in the foreground is moving in an lefthand arc and shows significant rotation. It also casts a shadow onto the ground.
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) 🚀🛰️
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) 🚀🛰️  ·  2 months ago

Content Warning

"An Evening Sky Full of Planets" is #NASA #astronomy picture of the day #APOD - Rare but occasionally-recurring spectacle in the sky: most of the visible planets line up briefly in a single night-sky view while our orbits put us all on the same side of the Sun. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250111.html
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for 2025-01-11: photo caption from https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250111.html An Evening Sky Full of Planets Image Credit & Copyright: Dario Giannobile Explanation: Only Mercury is missing from a Solar System parade of planets in this early evening skyscape. Rising nearly opposite the Sun, bright Mars is at the far left. The other naked-eye planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, can also be spotted, with the positions of too-faint Uranus and Neptune marked near the arcing trace of the ecliptic plane. On the far right and close to the western horizon after sunset is a young crescent Moon whose surface is partly illuminated by earthshine. In the foreground of the composite panorama captured on 2 January, planet Earth is represented by Mount Etna's lower Silvestri Crater. Of course Earth's early evening skies are full of planets for the entire month of January. On 13 January, a nearly Full Moon will appear to pass in front of Mars for skywatchers in the continental U.S. and Eastern Canada.
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for 2025-01-11: photo caption from https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250111.html An Evening Sky Full of Planets Image Credit & Copyright: Dario Giannobile Explanation: Only Mercury is missing from a Solar System parade of planets in this early evening skyscape. Rising nearly opposite the Sun, bright Mars is at the far left. The other naked-eye planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, can also be spotted, with the positions of too-faint Uranus and Neptune marked near the arcing trace of the ecliptic plane. On the far right and close to the western horizon after sunset is a young crescent Moon whose surface is partly illuminated by earthshine. In the foreground of the composite panorama captured on 2 January, planet Earth is represented by Mount Etna's lower Silvestri Crater. Of course Earth's early evening skies are full of planets for the entire month of January. On 13 January, a nearly Full Moon will appear to pass in front of Mars for skywatchers in the continental U.S. and Eastern Canada.
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for 2025-01-11: photo caption from https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250111.html An Evening Sky Full of Planets Image Credit & Copyright: Dario Giannobile Explanation: Only Mercury is missing from a Solar System parade of planets in this early evening skyscape. Rising nearly opposite the Sun, bright Mars is at the far left. The other naked-eye planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, can also be spotted, with the positions of too-faint Uranus and Neptune marked near the arcing trace of the ecliptic plane. On the far right and close to the western horizon after sunset is a young crescent Moon whose surface is partly illuminated by earthshine. In the foreground of the composite panorama captured on 2 January, planet Earth is represented by Mount Etna's lower Silvestri Crater. Of course Earth's early evening skies are full of planets for the entire month of January. On 13 January, a nearly Full Moon will appear to pass in front of Mars for skywatchers in the continental U.S. and Eastern Canada.
FreddyB Aviation Photography
FreddyB Aviation Photography  ·  2 months ago

Content Warning

NASA One (flight control): "It looks good at NASA One."
B-52 Pilot: "Roger. BCS Arm switch is on."
NASA One: "Okay, Victor."
B-52 Pilot: "Lining Rocket Arm switch is on."
B-52 Pilot: "Here comes the throttle. Circuit breakers in."
Steve Austin (voice of Lee Majors): "We have separation."

M2-F3 lifting body National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia #Smithsonian#NASA #m2f3 #liftingbody #aviationphotography#AvGeek #photography#Nikon #aircraft #nikonphotography

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  2 months ago

Content Warning

🔴 October 8, 2024 #RocketLab will challenge the program to hit a 📆 2028 launch window https://spacenews.com/nasa-awards-rocket-lab-study-contract-for-mars-sample-return

📆 December 2, 2024 #SpaceX would rely on #Starship. Canceling #MSR would open the door for #China 🇨🇳 to become the first nation to return samples from #Marshttps://spacenews.com/foust-forward-who-gets-the-final-word-on-mars-sample-return

#Mars#SampleReturn#NASA #commercial#Neutron

Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) 🚀🛰️
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) 🚀🛰️  ·  2 months ago

Content Warning

The pace of #space launches has reached the point that lots of stuff is always happening. But some things don't go as planned. @LiveScience was able to make a Top 10 list of mishaps in space in 2024. #Starliner figures prominently on the list. But also 3 #Falcon9 groundings, #Starship explosions, and misc probes and rovers. https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/10-times-space-missions-went-very-wrong-in-2024#NewSpace#NASA#SpaceX#Boeing
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