“Holes In The Clouds” Appear Over Florida’s Offshore Waters

“Holes In The Clouds” Appear Over Florida’s Offshore Waters

Famed Florida fine-arts photographer Clyde Butcher once said, “Out west, they have their mountains. We have our clouds.” Butcher’s observation was spot-on. The Sunshine State is home to some incredible sights in our skies—be it the setting sun illuminating a faraway thunderstorm, a wall cloud from an approaching tropical storm, or even just a regular day when the clouds take on shapes where they appear to be animals or something else familiar. There’s always something interesting to see here by simply looking upwards into the atmosphere.

Space History: Corned Beef on High

Space History: Corned Beef on High

Gus Grissom

When I was a kid, Wolfie’s in Cocoa Beach was one of my Dad’s favorites to take me out to eat. It was kid-friendly, unlike a place like The Mousetrap or other infamous and legendary Cocoa Beach haunts. They’re all long gone now, as is the nature of restaurants in a resort town. One that is especially missed by many is Wolfie’s, a place that not only had a great lunch but also a side note in space history that is funny today but was not at all amusing in the mid-1960s.

While Crew 8 Waits, SpaceX Launches Starlink 6-40

While Crew 8 Waits, SpaceX Launches Starlink 6-40

With Crew-8’s Falcon 9 sitting on Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center this morning waiting for weather to improve along its launch corridor, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 carrying 23 more Starlink Version 2 Mini satellites to low-Earth orbit from its other launch pad on the Eastern Range at SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Rendering of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner docked at ISS

NASA’s Steve Stich Gives Quick Starliner Update

Rendering of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner docked at ISS
Graphic: Boeing Corporation

During the NASA Administrator Briefing from the Kennedy Space Center mainly centered around Crew-8 readiness today, Steve Stich, the Manager of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program gave some insight about the status of the planned first crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner. That launch is currently planned for late April of this year.

“Houston, Odysseus has found his new home.”

Odysseus passes over the near side of the Moon following lunar orbit insertion on 21FEB2024.
Odysseus passes over the near side of the Moon following lunar orbit insertion on 21FEB2024.

Intuitive Machines has confirmed that the IM-1 Nova-C class lunar lander “Odysseus” touched down on the surface of the Moon today, sometime around 6:30 PM EST. The exact time of touchdown is not yet known, as the company has not yet downloaded and released data from the spacecraft.

SpaceX Completes Doubleheader; Sends Intuitive Machines Lunar Lander On Its Way

This story first appeared in Talk Of Titusville . Reproduced with permission.

The second of two Falcon 9 rockets launched from the space coast a few hours apart.
Timelapse of the flight path of Falcon 9 carrying NASA CLPS / Intuitive Machines IM-1 lunar lander to orbit on February 15, 2024
Photo: Charles Boyer / FMN

A rarity is becoming commonplace lately here on the Space Coast, as SpaceX successfully launched two Falcon 9 rockets within eight hours of each other from the Eastern Range, returning both safely to the ground at the company’s Cape Canaveral landing zones.

Polaris Dawn Flight Delayed to Mid-2024

Polaris Dawn Crew in Zero Gravity Training
Polaris Dawn astronauts, L-R: Scott “Kidd” Poteet, Sarah Gillis, Jared Isaacman and Anna Menon undergoing zero gravity training in 2022.
Photo: John Kraus / Polaris Dawn

Polaris Dawn, the initial flight of a planned series of three private spaceflights led by American entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman, has been delayed according to an announcement from the program today. “We are now targeting no earlier than summer 2024 for launch of Polaris Dawn, the first of the Polaris Program’s three human spaceflights,” they said in a post on the X platform.

NASA Announces Crew-9 Roster: Who Are They?

NASA Announces Crew-9 Roster: Who Are They?

Crew 9 Portrait
Official NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 portrait: (L-R) Stephanie Wilson, Aleksandr Gorbunov, Nick Hague, and Zena Cardman.
NASA

NASA today announced the four astronauts that will travel aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station later this year: Zena Cardman will be the Mission Commander,  Nick Hague will be the Pilot, along with Stephanie Wilson and Russian Mission Specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov will travel to ISS no earlier than August 2024.

The US Orbited Its First Satellite 66 Years Ago Today

Cape Canaveral Every four or five days, Space Coast residents hear or see a rocket taking flight from the Cape, often carrying thirty or more satellites to low-Earth orbit. It happens so often that people will shrug and say something like, “It’s just another Starlink flight,” and not think twice about it.