Astronaut mementos packed on Boeing Starliner with crew | Space Quiz! Water ice is present beneath how much of the surface of Mars? | This Week In Space: Episode 103 - Starship's Orbital Feat
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A NASA astronaut who had the honor of naming her spacecraft will fly items inspired by that name when she launches to the International Space Station next month. Sunita "Suni" Williams, who is set to fly with fellow NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore on Boeing's first Crew Flight Test (CFT) of its CST-100 Starliner capsule, will reveal the "Calypso"-related items once she is in orbit.
On Episode 103 of This Week In Space, Rod and Tariq talk with Space.com's Dr. Mike Wall about last week's third test flight of SpaceX's Starship. The successful launch, ascent, staging, and testing of propellant transfer and the cargo bay door were all brilliant, yet both vehicles were destroyed before completing their planned trajectories, and the upper stage didn't make it into orbit (though it did reach "orbital velocity," according to Elon). So what's the real story on this test flight? When will the next one be? How close is SpaceX to routine launches of Starship, and when might it be ready to land NASA astronauts on the moon? And finally--an interstellar Starship, really Elon?
If you observe the sun's corona during totality, you may see dark-pink towers and loops of electrically charged plasma stretching many times the diameter of Earth into space. These prominences will almost certainly be on show during totality in North America on April 8, because the sun is likely at the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, known as solar maximum.
Marina Vasilevskaya, who also served as a flight instructor for Belavia Airlines in her home country of Belarus, traded her attendant uniform for a Russian Sokol pressure suit to become the first Belarusian woman to fly into space.
Last week, an ominous letter was published to the Chandra X-ray Observatory's website. "Dear Chandra community," it starts, "As many of you are aware, the NASA budget for FY25 and beyond was released…"
SpaceX is still analyzing data from last week's flight, but it's also looking ahead to mission number four. Indeed, the company has moved the coming flight's Ship out to the launch pad at Starbase "for upcoming static fires," SpaceX said.
Things are looking up for digging deep on Mars. Progress is palpable on how best to extract subsurface ice to generate drinkable water, rocket fuel and other useful resources on the Red Planet. But boring down from the topside of Mars to reach available icy reservoirs is no slam dunk. Tackling that challenge is the company Honeybee Robotics, which calls its approach the RedWater concept.
It's not easy to be truly original in today's "go along to get along" world, but rebellious Swedish filmmaker Johan Renck ("Chernobyl") has achieved that rare designation by composing a transcendent fable in the new Netflix film, "Spaceman."
SpaceX launches its 30th Dragon cargo mission to the ISS | Space Quiz! What type of stars have earned the nickname "failed stars"? | A 'snowball fight' may help scientists find life on Europa
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SpaceX launched its 30th cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA this afternoon (March 21), carrying 3 tons of supplies and scientific hardware to the orbiting lab.
Scientists hoping to find life in liquid water oceans beneath the frigid, icy shell of Jupiter's moon Europa may get a helping hand from a "cosmic snowball fight" this world once engaged in.
In many ways, the April 8 total solar eclipse could be one of the best of the last 100 years. The event will be visible from Mexico, across 15 U.S. states and in parts of northeast Canada. Many areas will see over four minutes of totality - the time in which the sun is completely blocked by the moon from our vantage point on Earth. To help document the rare event, ABC and National Geographic are airing "Eclipse Across America," a two-hour special beginning at 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT) on April 8, 2024.
Of the 15 states that will be touched by the moon's dark umbral shadow on April 8, no state is perhaps more enthused at the prospect of hosting the total solar eclipse than New York. At New York's last total eclipse, which occurred on Jan. 24, 1925, totality passed over cities that again will be in the totality zone this year: Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Rochester. But unlike this year, the moon's dark shadow took a more southeasterly track in 1925 encompassing a section of New York City's metropolitan area.
A massive swirl of bright white light seemingly appeared from out of nowhere in the night sky above the Arctic last week, briefly upstaging a vibrant aurora display that spanned thousands of miles.
You have got to feel for brown dwarfs. Not only has their failure to ignite like normal stars earned them an unfortunate nickname - failed stars - but new findings from the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed they can't even hold a relationship together.
When the 165-foot-tall (50 meters) SpaceX Starship upper stage crashed into the Indian Ocean last week during its third test flight, environmentally conscious observers wondered whether the stainless-steel vehicle, perhaps containing hundreds of kilograms of residual fuel, could endanger marine life. The good news is - not really. Starship uses one of the most environmentally friendly fuel combinations available. Still, sustainability experts warn that the rocket is not without its problems.
A swish new video has landed, animating how a robotic, 18-propellor, flying vehicle could arrive at Mars someday and begin exploring the planet from high in its pinky-red sky. MAGGIE, the Mars Aerial and Ground Intelligent Explorer, was selected by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program for phase 1 development in January. This means the team behind MAGGIE - hailing from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Purdue University and start-up aerospace company CoFlow Jet - will receive funding to further develop the cutting-edge technology needed to possibly make MAGGIE a reality.
Netflix has found a most prominent seat at the head of the table for provocative sci-fi fare with the release of "3 Body Problem," a very different shade of existential alien infiltration project crafted with an epic scope and profound environmentalism topics which must be witnessed to be believed, all distilled down to an eight-hour marvel.
