Everyone knows the big news for the day because everyone seems to be covering that India's Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon this morning (Eastern US time). India becomes the fourth nation in world history to soft land a probe on the moon and the first to land as close to the south pole as they did, essentially 70 degrees south latitude. Congratulations to the ISRO on the success!
Since everyone knows that, it's relevant to pass along other stories.
Following a successful flight readiness review, NASA and SpaceX have approved the Crew 7 mission for flight, with launch set for 3:49 AM ET on Friday, the morning of 8/25.
The international crew for this mission is NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli (Mission Commander), European Spacey Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen (Pilot), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa (Mission Specialist), and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov (Mission Specialist).
The normal protocol for these missions is that when Crew 7 docks with the ISS the four astronauts will team up with their counterparts on Crew 6 for briefing on things they need to know. This lasts for "a couple" of days, then Crew 6 will board their Dragon and return to Earth. The length of a crew rotation on the ISS is typically around six months. They launched on March 2, so add six months ... The official date for splashdown is September 1st.
As I write this, SpaceX has just completed a spin prime test of Booster 9 at Boca Chica. NASA Spaceflight is covering the event live with narration, as usual, but the video URL will be different tomorrow.
This evening (again, Eastern Time) Rocket Lab launched a mission from New Zealand; the mission, called We Love the Nightlife, carried a satellite called Acadia for the company Capella Space. Capella specializes in Synthetic Aperture Radar, and SAR's ability to image things "where (or when) the sun don't shine" is the root of mission's name.
The headline (although they'd never say that) was that one of the nine Rutherford booster engines was the first reused Rutherford to fly. The engine first flew over a year ago, May of '22, and has been extensively tested on the ground. The booster from tonight's mission was recovered at sea, as was the case in their previous flight. They're moving toward reusing everything but that takes time. It took SpaceX a lot of flights to land and reuse Falcon 9 boosters.
An image capture from Rocket Lab's webcast. Image credit: Rocket Lab.
So...India has landed on the moon. By this time next month the moon will have its first 7/11.
ReplyDeleteDan, you can think you’re being funny but you’re not.
ReplyDeleteAs Elon likes to say, orbit is hard. The Moon is harder. Kudos where they’ve been earned.
- Borepatch
Someone misplaced there sense of humor... yes..orbit is hard, space is hard, the moon is hard. Guess what life is hard. It's never harder for those who can't laugh.
Delete