Moving Again

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The view from the rover Opportunity. Click for -slightly- larger. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Opportunity is off and moving again after the Martian winter. Pretty good for a mission that ended its primary phase in 2004.

The bar is pretty high for the new rover Curiosity when it arrives.

From JPL:

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity drove about 12 feet (3.67 meters) on May 8, 2012, after spending 19 weeks working in one place while solar power was too low for driving during the Martian winter. The winter worksite was on the north slope of an outcrop called Greeley Haven. The rover used its rear hazard-avoidance camera after nearly completing the May 8 drive, capturing this view looking back at the Greeley Haven. The dark shape in the foreground is the shadow of Opportunity’s solar array. The view is toward the southeast.

Since landing in the Meridiani region of Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time and EST (Jan. 24, PST), Opportunity has driven 21.4 miles (34.4 kilometers)

NuSTAR

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The NuSTAR is scheduled for launch sometime in June, the date isn’t available at the moment or at least as far as I could find. The date should be released by U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site shortly.

The NuSTAR will be flown from the air-launched Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus rocket.  The Pegasus booster has flown 40 times overall and 25 in the more powerful Pegasus XL rocket.  The air launch is where the booster and spacecraft is dropped from a plane, in this case the L-1011 jumbo jet, at an altitude of about 40,000 feet.  The launch will occur over the Pacific Ocean.

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Little Janus

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Cassini takes a close look at the Saturn moon Janus during a flyby on March 27, 2012. Click for larger. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

 

Here’s another small moon of Saturn named Janus. Audouin Dollfus discovered Janus on December 15, 1966, quite a discovery considering Janus has a diameter of just 111 miles / 179 km.

Janus and the much more famous moon Epimetheus make for some interesting riddle-fodder: they are co-orbitals. Yes they share an orbit around Saturn. Funny because the difference in semi-major axes is less than either moon’s average diameter. A confusing way to say one moon slowly catches up with the other and when it does it acts to increase the semi-major axis of the moon doing the catching and decreasing the one for the moon being caught up to. Still clear as mud? Well the end result of the dance is the two moons actually sway positions! Cool eh? Here’s a cartoon of the dance (160k).

More on the image from the JPL site.

Space X Launch Delay

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The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft atop the Falcon 9 at the test firing test. Click for larger. Image: SpaceX via RedOrbit.

As you probably know if you’ve read this page, today was to be the demonstration flight to the ISS of the SpaceX Dragon space capsule atop the Falcon 9 rocket.

Last week I mentioned there was a dress rehearsal. Apparently while the rehearsal went quite well, time was needed to review data from the test including some software changes. The delay seems to avoid a potential conflict with a Russian Soyuz carrying three new crew for the ISS. The Soyuz mission is set to launch on May 14 and arrive at the ISS on May 17.

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, told Boyle. “The teamwork provided by these teams is phenomenal. There are a few remaining open items, but we are ready to support SpaceX for its new launch date of May 19.”
From redOrbit (share this quote)

SpaceX is saying so far there have been “no issues” during the software review and they are being “extremely diligent.

There is a alternate date in case there is some problem on the 19th.  Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.  I am hoping NASA TV will carry the launch live.

For now the it is expected the launch will be on May 19 at 0455 am EDT / 0855 UTC (if I did my math right).

Once successfully launched, the spacecraft will be extensively test to see that it can move very precisely and safely approach the ISS.  If those objectives are met, then docking with the ISS is next thing and unloading the 1200 pounds of supplies it will be carrying.

If for some reason there is any hesitation on the part of NASA or SpaceX about the way things are going, the mission will be called and a third launch will be in order.

Stellar Homicide

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Nice animation.

This computer simulation shows a star being shredded by the gravity of a massive black hole. Some of the stellar debris falls into the black hole and some of it is ejected into space at high speeds. The areas in white are regions of highest density, with progressively redder colors corresponding to lower-density regions. The blue dot pinpoints the black hole’s location. The elapsed time corresponds to the amount of time it takes for a sun-like star to be ripped apart by a black hole a million times more massive than the sun. (Credit: NASA; S. Gezari, The Johns Hopkins University; and J. Guillochon, University of California, Santa Cruz)

The Galex site has the details.

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Last Riddle?

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SOLVED by Ron

I was going to make this a last chance to a bonus riddle but fell a little behind again this week. Hopefully after hitting a pretty large dog bone with a lawn mower and shooting said bone through a living room window and reducing it to thousands of little bits strewn between three rooms, things will start to look up if only by comparison.  I am catching up all the while.

Here’s a pretty easy  (and short) one for you:

So today’s subject was known to the ancients. Our subject was considered to be a bad omen and believe me, it still is today by an increasing number of people.

We can see examples of this all over the solar system.

Does our subject make noise?  Some say yes others say no.  Me?  I like to think yes but if I was to have one of these Kroners for every time I’ve heard it I have none of these.

Noise? I can do noise. Before the name of our subject was coined in the 1620′s, some described it as what you hear here especially sailors and those in Scotland.