Rockets, Launches, Satellites, ISS, etc.

[RTH10260]

Ax-3 to Now Launch on Jan. 18

Ax-3 Mission
January 17, 2024

SpaceX and Axiom Space are now targeting Thursday, Jan. 18 at 4:49 p.m. ET for the launch of Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) to the International Space Station (ISS). This launch date change will allow additional time for teams to complete pre-launch checkouts and data analysis, including of the parachute system energy modulator.

Click here for updates on launch coverage and follow along for mission updates with #Ax3 on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook, and on our website.




https://www.axiomspace.com/news/category/Ax-3+Mission

[RTH10260]

The launch now in progress, in 25 mins as of this posting

[RTH10260]

next event: 36 hours from now, Saturday, docking with ISS.

[RTH10260]

Japan’s lunar lander reaches the moon but is rapidly losing power, space agency says

By Ashley Strickland, CNN
Updated 3:05 PM EST, Fri January 19, 2024

CNN — Japan’s “Moon Sniper” robotic explorer landed on the lunar surface, but the mission may end prematurely since the spacecraft’s solar cell is not generating electricity, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said. The agency said it is currently receiving a signal from the lander, which is communicating as expected.

The uncrewed Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, mission landed just after 10:20 a.m. ET Friday (12:20 a.m. Saturday Japan Standard Time), according to telemetry data shared on JAXA’s live broadcast.

Currently, the lander is operating on limited battery power, only expected to last several hours, and the JAXA team is analyzing the data to determine the cause of the solar cell issue and the next steps for the lander. It’s possible that the solar cell issue is due to the fact that the spacecraft is not pointing in the intended direction, JAXA officials said.

There is hope that as the solar angle changes on the moon, the solar cell may be able to charge again, but that may take some time and will depend on whether SLIM can survive the frigid lunar night, the team shared during a news conference.

The agency believes the mission has met the criteria to declare it a “minimum success,” because the spacecraft achieved a precise and soft lunar landing using optical navigation. The touchdown makes Japan the third country this century — and the fifth ever — to land on the moon.

When asked to score the landing operation for SLIM, JAXA director general Dr. Hitoshi Kuninaka gave it a “60 out of 100,” while also mentioning that he is known for making “harsh comments.”

The team is also working to gather all of the scientific data obtained by the lander.

The lander was able to release its two lunar rovers, LEV-1 and LEV-2. The LEV-1 rover moves using a hopping mechanism and is equipped with wide-angle visible light cameras, scientific equipment and antennas that allow it to communicate with Earth.
And LEV-2, also outfitted with cameras, can change shape to move across the lunar surface.

The team is receiving a signal from LEV-1 and will see whether its cameras were able to capture any images. JAXA officials said they will not definitively confirm the status of LEV-2 until more data is received.




https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/19/worl ... index.html

[RTH10260]

happened yesterday

[Chilidog]

"so how do we sound, upside down?"

IMG_1203.jpeg (364.95 KiB) Viewed 795 times

[RTH10260]

The next astronaut deployed to fix the problem will be an Australian, mark my words

[RTH10260]

California Science Center lifting space shuttle Endeavour into launch position

KTLA 5
30 Jan 2024

Officials at the California Science Center in Exposition Park are close to completing a dream launched 30 years ago as they prepare to lift the space shuttle Endeavour from its current horizontal position into a vertical ready-for-launch position Monday night. Rachel Menitoff reports for KTLA 5 News at 10, Jan. 29, 2024

[RTH10260]

Happening in the minutes this is posted

https://www.youtube.com/live/-FHvkSQEpdU (live stream - now ended)

[p0rtia]

Tx. Cool!

[RTH10260]

A U.S.-built spacecraft lands on the moon for the first time in half a century.
For the first time in more than 50 years, an American spacecraft has landed on the moon.

The lander, named Odysseus, was built by Intuitive Machines of Houston. Minutes after beginning its landing sequence at 6:11 p.m. Eastern time the spacecraft touched the ground, making it the first privately built spacecraft to land on the lunar surface.

While the spacecraft is on the moon and transmitting signals to Earth, Tim Crain, the mission director and Intuitive Machines’ chief technology officer, said it was uncertain if the spacecraft would be able to achieve its objectives.

Still, in the face of that indeterminate outcome, Dr. Crain congratulated his colleagues in the flight control center at the company’s headquarters.

“Houston, Odysseus has found its new home,” Dr. Crain said.

The landing site was a flat area near the Malapert A crater, about 185 miles north of the moon’s south pole. The moon’s polar regions have attracted much interest in recent years because of water ice hidden in the shadows of craters there.

Odysseus left Earth early on Feb. 15 aboard a SpaceX rocket. It pulled into lunar orbit on Wednesday. About 12 minutes before landing on Thursday, it fired its engine to begin its descent to the surface.

From this point onward in the landing sequence, Odysseus was operating completely on its own, with flight controllers at Intuitive Machines’ control center powerless to change what happened.

To accomplish the landing, Intuitive Machines had to overcome late technical issues with the flight. During the coverage of the landing, a company spokesman said a laser instrument on the spacecraft that was to provide data on its altitude and velocity was not working.

That problem explained why the spacecraft took an extra orbit around the moon, which provided two hours for changes in the spacecraft’s software that allowed the use of an experimental NASA lidar instrument on the spacecraft instead.



https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/22 ... =url-share

[John Thomas8]

It's sad, the lost potential when Apollo ended.

[RTH10260]

as above

US returns to lunar surface for first time in over 50 years: ‘Welcome to the moon’
Intuitive Machines’ spacecraft Odysseus lands after a 73-minute descent, touching down near moon’s south pole

Richard Luscombe
Fri 23 Feb 2024 04.29 CET

The United States has returned to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years after a privately-built spacecraft named Odysseus capped a nail-biting 73-minute descent from orbit with a touchdown near the moon’s south pole.

Amid celebrations of what Nasa hailed “a giant leap forward”, there was no immediate confirmation of the status or condition of the lander, other than it had reached its planned landing site at crater Malapert A.

But later Intuitive Machines, the Texas-based company that built the first commercial craft to land on the moon, said the craft was “upright and starting to send data”.

The statement on X said mission managers were “working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface”.

The so-called “soft landing” on Thursday, which Steve Altemus, the company’s founder, had given only an 80% chance of succeeding, was designed to open a new era of lunar exploration as Nasa works towards a scheduled late-2026 mission to send humans back there.



https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... e-machines

[RTH10260]

The lander had some side drift in the last moments and seemed to have tripped over one of its legs. It seems that it is horizontally off the ground leaning on something.

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander tipped over on the moon during 'spicy' lunar landing

By Mike Wall
published about 15 hours ago

But the history-making spacecraft still seems to be in good shape, and its mission continues.

The private Odysseus lander is down on the lunar surface, in more ways than one.

The 14-foot-tall (4.3 meters) Odysseus, which was built by Houston company Intuitive Machines, apparently settled on its side during its historic touchdown yesterday (Feb. 22), mission team members said. But don't panic — the pioneering spacecraft is still very much alive.

"So far, we have quite a bit of operational capability even though we're tipped over," Intuitive Machines CEO and co-founder Steve Altemus said during a press briefing today (Feb. 23).

"And so that's really exciting for us, and we're continuing the surface operations mission as a result of it," he added.



https://www.space.com/intuitive-machine ... ipped-over

[RTH10260]

Japan’s moon lander survives two-week lunar night after wonky landing
Unmanned Slim spacecraft responds to signal from Earth after touching down at awkward angle in January

Agence France-Presse in Tokyo
Mon 26 Feb 2024 13.11 CET

Japan’s moon lander has responded to a signal from Earth, suggesting it survived the two-week lunar night, the country’s space agency has said.

The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) touched down last month at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way. But as the sun’s angle shifted, it powered up for two days and carried out scientific observations of a crater with a hi-spec camera.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) said the lander went to sleep again as darkness returned and, since it was “not designed for the harsh lunar nights”, it was unclear whether it would reawaken.

“Yesterday we sent a command, to which Slim responded,” Jaxa said on Monday. “Slim succeeded in surviving a night on the moon’s surface while maintaining its communication function.”

It said communications were “terminated after a short time, as it was still lunar midday and the temperature of the communication equipment was very high. Preparations are being made to resume operations when instrument temperatures have sufficiently cooled.”

Slim, nicknamed the Moon Sniper for its precision landing technology, touched down within its target landing zone on 20 January.

The feat was a win for Japan’s space programme after a string of recent failures, making the country only the fifth to achieve a “soft landing” on the moon, after the US, Soviet Union, China and India.

During its descent, the craft experienced engine problems and ended up on its side with the solar panels facing west instead of up.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... spacecraft

[RTH10260]

Press conference after six days on the moon. Everything seems to be going fine. The lander is leaningslightly due to a crooked leg. The lander will be put into sleep mode and woken uoin about three weeks whenthe sun shines again at the south pole


(Into skipped)

[RTH10260]

Hurry - you just have time to hunker down ...

5,800 pounds of batteries tossed off the ISS in 2021 will fall to Earth today
"Luminous phenomena or the perception of a sonic boom are possible."

By Leonard David( space.com-leonard-david )
published 6 minutes ago

A nearly 3-ton leftover tossed overboard from the International Space Station is nearing its plunge toward Earth.

The multi-ton Exposed Pallet 9 (EP9) was jettisoned from the space station back in March 2021. At the time, it was reported to be the most massive object ever tossed overboard from the International Space Station. Disposing of used or unnecessary equipment in such a way is common practice aboard the space station, as the objects typically burn up harmlessly in Earth's atmosphere.

Ahead of EP9's reentry, the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief, National Warning Center 1 in Bonn, Germany issued this information:

"Between midday on March 8 and midday on March 9, a larger space object is expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and possibly fragment," the translated statement explains. "The object is battery packs from the International Space Station (ISS). Luminous phenomena or the perception of a sonic boom are possible."

The post from the warning center explains that "the probability of debris hitting Germany is considered to be very low. If the risk increases, you will receive new information."

According to a social media post by astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the battery should reenter between 7:30 a.m. ET (1230 GMT) on March 9 and 3:30 a.m. ET (0830 UTC) on March 9.

Reentry of the EP-9 battery pallet jettisoned from ISS in 2021 is currently predicted (by Space Force) between 1230 UTC Mar 8 and 0830 UTC Mar 9. It will not totally burn up on reentry - about half a tonne of fragments will likely hit the Earth's surface.March 7, 2024



https://www.space.com/old-batteries-re-enter-atmosphere

The International Space Station jettisons a 2.9-ton pallet carrying used batteries on March 11, 2021. This photo was posted on Twitter by NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins (Image credit: NASA/Mike Hopkins via Twitter)

[RTH10260]

Crew from ISS returned to Earth

[northland10]

Crew from ISS returned to Earth

I'm sure this is bad for Biden.

[p0rtia]

Cool, thanks!

[MN-Skeptic]

[John Thomas8]

Live stream of the latest Falcon 9 launch in 5 minutes:

[John Thomas8]

Or 45 minutes as the time just bumped back.

Now set for 0200. Maybe.

[John Thomas8]

Trying again, this time at 2200 Eastern, actual launch at 2230:

[John Thomas8]

Maybe Voyager I can be partially saved?