Covering All Things Florida
In a statement released today, NASA stated that, “[Agency] and Boeing engineers are evaluating results from last week’s engine tests at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico as the team works through plans to return the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test from the International Space Station in the coming weeks.”
Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, announced last week that it has completed modernizing the four flight-proven RS-25 engines that will help power NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on the Artemis IV mission. Artemis IV will be the first flight of the enhanced Block 1B configuration of the super-heavy-lift rocket and the last to use engines remaining in inventory from the space shuttle program.
Citing rising costs and continued delays, NASA announced today that it has canceled its VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) mission, which was planned to explore the Moon’s South Pole region for water ice.
Crewed spaceflight is, of course, serious business. Even today, the cost of sending people is so high that mission planners try to maximize every hour that a given crew is in space. Still, astronauts and cosmonauts are human beings, and human beings require rest and breaks from constantly working despite the fact that they are in orbit or even on their way to and from the moon. With that in mind one of the most enduring traditions in space flight is that of the crews listening to music both in space and even in the final minutes of a countdown. It started in 1961, and continues to this day, and is something sure to continue long into the future.
Some stories are almost forgotten about Apollo 11’s launch from Pad LC-39A — seemingly small stories that actually had a huge effect on the mission happening as it did. One of those stories concerns a hydrogen leak late in the countdown on the third stage of the Saturn V that was poised to launch on July 16, 1969 – if it had not been remediated, Apollo 11 would not have launched on the day that it did.
The popular meme in a lot of space coverage these days implies that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are stuck aboard the International Space Station. Some say that Starliner is incapacitated and unable to return them to Earth. NASA and Boeing have steadfastly stated that is not the case, but at the same time, a test flight originally scheduled for eight days has been repeatedly extended to conduct tests on faulty thrusters on the CST-100 Starliner’s service module.
NASA and Boeing officials held a press conference today and stated that no return date has yet been set for Starliner. According to the officials, engineers are continuing to investigate system failures on the spacecraft and gather data on the Starliner thruster pods.
Kennedy Space Center, Florida — SpaceX’s ambitious plans to repurpose Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center for its Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle program have sparked a wide array of concerns from various public and private stakeholders.
Though they are often taken for granted, spacesuits are a vital part of US space efforts, both now with the International Space Station, and also later, when astronauts from Project Artemis undertake their EVA duties on the lunar surface. Without spacesuits, many of the necessary maintenance and upgrade duties on ISS cannot be performed, and obviously, without spacesuits, no one will be walking on the moon.
The day is coming, sooner rather than later, when the ISS will have outlived its design life. NASA sees it coming and has already started the wheels turning to send the multi-national behemoth to a fiery end.
Only 10 minutes into Tuesday’s 2-hour launch window, a SpaceX Falcon heavy lifted off carrying the last of a series of new weather satellites to orbit. The GOES-U weather satellite launch was the last of a series designated GOES-R.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is set to launch its latest geostationary weather satellite, GOES-U, on June 25, 2024, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This mission, the final installment in the GOES-R series, will dramatically advance weather observation and environmental monitoring technology.
By any objective standard, it’s been an insane week in space….or at least far from “routine”. From a faux “ISS Emergency” to scuttled spacewalks to hints of yet more Starliner problems, the week’s news has been anything but boring.
