Posted in particle physics, space travel | Leave a Comment on Two research rockets successfully launched over the Norwegian Sea early Dec. 8 carrying an experiment to study the explosive process that allows charged particles from space to stream into Earth’s atmosphere
The results promise to shed light on this and, in the long run, help us better predict how and when Earth’s magnetic shield can suddenly become porous to let outside particles in. Details: https://go.nasa.gov/2G8lTeX&h=AT0CScAabrNYUB0DKGANhglZ-EihhFCsSZUCw11qHHEPyqyt7tkLrDHRfSZJPSpREJKtU5VJnaDwD17LXtMgRsZLyIWqaVEx0ZHgemxdkZRSPRmrfgdij1FtqJ3ephm5_CO5ZNx2tAkMaUaKHMkNY0qkAo9pniIyZ5ldrzxk96lI51Yf7jUjKw
A big announcement from NASA about landing on the moon is coming on Thursday.
If NASA’s stunning landing of a car-sized robot on Mars didn’t already whet your appetite for space exploration this week, mark your calendar for 2 p.m. EST on Thursday.
That’s when NASA plans to give an update about a program that aims to land privately developed spacecraft on the moon.
Drawn in by Teslarati photographer Pauline Acalin’s most recent photos of Port of LA Falcon 9 recovery operations SpaceX is in the midst of, CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter on December 8th to discuss titanium grid fins and – more importantly – answer a miscellaneous handful of questions about the status of BFR’s development.
Marked lately by rapid-fire, wide-reaching changes to BFR’s general structural composite, Musk at long last confirmed what some suspected – now known as Starship/Super Heavy, the BFR program has officially moved away from carbon fiber composites as the primary material of choice for the rocket’s structure and propellant tanks, instead pivoting to what Musk described as a “fairly heavy metal”.
But cool pics of the demo Starship that will fly suborbital hops coming in ~4 weeks.
We launched two sounding rockets that will help scientists understand atmospheric escape on our home planet that has applications all over the universe — from predicting which far off planets might be habitable, to piecing together how Mars became the desolate, exposed landscape it is today.
SpaceX’s #Dragon cargo spacecraft was successfully installed on the Earth-facing side of the International Space Station’s Harmony module at 10:36 a.m. EST. While there are now six spaceships attached at the station, the Dragon will spend about five weeks there and return to Earth in January 2019 with more than 4,000 pounds of research, hardware and crew supplies.
