Fifty years ago, nine missions spread over four years took humans to the moon, either to orbit it, loop around it, or land on its surface. Since the return of Apollo 17 in December 1972, humans have ventured no farther…
Category: Spacecraft
Hawaii or Antarctica?
nealsumerlin
Posted in human spaceflight, Mars, Planets, Solar System, Spacecraft, The Moon
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Tagged with: Human space exploration
The Current Time Is…
How do you navigate in space, where there is no land or sea below you, no up or down, and only a black and star-spangled sky in every direction? We rightly celebrate the achievements of the nine Apollo missions that…
Tagged with: Deep Space Atomic Clock
Drones on Mars!
A few months ago, I posted here about a proposed mission that would fly an eight-rotor copter in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. That mission has been given the go-ahead, but the complexities of designing, building, and testing…
Sailing on Light
“Sunjammer”, a story by the noted science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, appeared in the March 1964 issue of Boys’ Life. I’m not sure how soon after that I read the story, but I’m certain it was before I left…
Long Distance Calls Home
I’m old enough to remember being completely awed by the low resolution black and white images beamed back to Earth from Mars in 1965. The Mariner 4 spacecraft performed the first successful flyby mission that produced images from deep space.…
The Legacy of Opportunity
The final confirmation of the demise of the Opportunity rover occasioned a remarkable number of tributes to its 14 year mission exploring the Meridiani Plain of Mars—and not a few tears. Mars is a dusty planet, and the solar cells…
Tagged with: Opportunity rover
Flying Over Another World
There are currently 26 active NASA spacecraft that have left low Earth orbit (LEO) to explore the solar system and beyond. This site lists 28, but it includes the Hubble Space Telescope which is in LEO, and the Opportunity Mars…
Upcoming Events
Far Encounter Remember the New Horizons spacecraft and its flyby of Pluto in July 2015? That previously little-known world presented us with what should now be expected—the unexpected, and new puzzles to solve. The spacecraft is still operating, sending back…
A New Target
The New Horizons spacecraft has a new target. Launched in 2006, its initial velocity was the fastest ever for an interplanetary probe, and a gravity assist maneuver at Jupiter gave it an additional boost. Even so, it did not arrive…
Orbital Mechanics Made Simple
Today’s lesson in orbital mechanics. I was spending New Year’s Day looking over an old 2017 “Year In Space” calendar before recycling it when I found this statement concerning the Spitzer Space Telescope. Spitzer travels in Earth’s orbit but at…
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