INCREDIBLE images from China's Chang’e 6 lander, which landed on the far side of the moon late on June 1 and lifted off in an ascent vehicle with the first lunar samples from the far side of the moon yesterday.
@skrishna I could search but I’m sure you know: was it remotely operated or (semi?) autonomous? (Given that it was on the far side, achieving reliable comms may have been challenging enough that they had to make it autonomous?).
Anyway, those picture are so good compared to what we saw recently!
@bibipov I know the rendezvous and docking in orbit will be autonomous, I don't know about the ascent! They do have communication though thanks to a relay satellite they placed in orbit.
Some planets are born alone, live alone, and die alone. The ESA's Euclid space telescope just found a nest of these loners in the constellation Orion.
At least the rogue planets have chosen a gorgeous spot to go about their business: This is where the newfound worlds are hanging out (toward the top of the image).
#PPOD: Some of the incredible solar activity was captured last month by spacecraft near the Sun, including these plasma tornadoes. These walls of plasma are higher than the Earth is in diameter. And, of course, all this solar activity has provided us with stunning aurorae. With solar maximum approaching, chances are high that we'll see more incredible views like this one! Credit: NASA
@65dBnoise my favourites for tosol are the navcam panoramas, maybe it's the horizon distortion but it's such a different feeling to see the height difference between the channel and the upper fan from this side... Once again, what a hundred meters do to one's perception 🤯
Plotting wireframe drawing of the 34-meter Antenna at Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, part of the Deep Space Network on the Roland DPX-2000 #PenPlotter
I dunno if it helps but just adding some (possible) context: I notice he's from Chicago and that's sort of a meme, around here (I assume due to the number of Greek restaurants around). You never (that I noticed, at least; I could be wrong) actually pronounce it (as the article's just text) so I think he was just making a joke.
Speaking of the article, it was a really interesting! It definitely makes sense but I'd never even thought about upkeep for the Hubble.
@WammKD Very possible he was making a joke, but I have never interacted with him and I'm at the point where I'm not giving anyone the benefit of the doubt on here.
@PaulHammond51
The odds are better for a Martian Crow to flyby the heli and say "caw-caw" than they are for the rover to cross the sand field and say "cling-cling" 🥴
So, the Sednoid's largest moon will be around 100km radius, non-spherical. My two basic models are Neptune's moon Larissa and Saturn's moon Phoebe (possibly captured from further away - the Kuiper Belt).
I don't know how different to expect a similarly sized object would be in a Sednoid orbit. Should the surface composition be mostly water ice and silicate rocks? Or would a Sednoid have more of other ices like CO, CO2, N2, CH4?
@skribe I dashed a quick post off while I was making my to do list for the week in an effort to be helpful to others for free. Sorry it wasn't good enough for you!
On Sol 1168 the rover moved to RMC 52.5032 across the ancient riverbed and stopped a few meters away from a light colored layer of rock at the foot of the northern bank, which appears to be the same layer with that of Bright Angel.
¹"the bacon strip": unofficial name for a light colored layer of rock back at the Three Forks area.
The HiRISE/USGS imagery has been imported into QGIS and since forgotten. I'm not fiddling with the rest of the imagery any more, though I used to do that earlier in this mission.
"Space economy" seems to have real impact on the way NASA engages with the public. I've spent a lot of time creating workflows with their data, e.g. for the #MarsWeather reports, LA, etc, but they're now discontinuing services while the mission is still active. That's not very encouraging.
@65dBnoise I think we've all seen the decline in the timelines of the release of new data, and in some cases the complete loss of some data with the move to the new style web pages. Not encouraging at all. It's a sad state of affairs. I did use the on-line feedback form to complain, but I feel that was just shouting into a vacuum
I’m not working this program so I can’t speak to this particular thing, but I have worked several launches on console in Mission Control.
A scrub this late, at least for me with Space Shuttle, was so hard mentally! You get into a mindset when, over many hours (our ascent shifts ended ~ 1 hr after Post Insertion, so we arrived on console ~ 7 hrs before launch), you psych yourself up for liftoff. It’s very deflating to be so close & not go! #nasa
@absolutspacegrl@thejapantimes What I do not understand, the programs are that expensive - why crucial Systems are not designed with redundancy. Especially - like I read it from the media - it was a ground computer system failure. Why there is no secondary system to take over?
@schnedan@thejapantimes There is redundancy but some failures happen prelaunch where you either don’t have time to troubleshoot, don’t understand the failure (STS-114 ECO sensors), or both.
There are Launch Commit Criteria (LCC) that have an effectivity- if x happens at T-4 hours, you do y. If x happens at T-1 hour, you do z, etc.
In this case it sounds like there was no time, and you don’t want to mess with bad software on ascent. That could create much bigger problems.
Preparations for NASA’s Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test Launch are in progress.
Launch time: 12:25 pm ET
"The two NASA astronauts aboard, flight commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, will test the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system, including launch, docking, and return to Earth. After a one-week stay docked to the International Space Station, the Starliner and crew will land under parachutes in the western United States."
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have entered Starliner and completed checks.
ULA is troubleshooting an issue with topping valves (for Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen) on the ground side. Running the fix through our SIL before executing - Tory Bruno, ULA President and CEO.
Starliner launch is now scheduled for 10:52 a.m. EDT Wednesday, June 5.
"The ULA team identified an issue with a single ground power supply within one of the 3 redundant chassis that provides power to a subset of computer cards controlling various system functions, including the card responsible for the stable replenishment topping valves for the Centaur upper stage."
The faulty chassis have been replaced with a spare unit.
Zooming in on a peculiar white rock in Neretva Vallis
This is a combination of three SuperCam RMI images and one Mastcam-Z image taken by the #Perseverance mars rover.
The images were taken two days ago on Sol 1164.
Last minute change to the Boeing CFT manifest — a urine processor on the ISS failed, apparently, and Boeing is taking a new one up for them. They had to pull off crew suitcases to make room.
#PPOD: To end our week, we look back at this beautiful picture of Titan and Saturn taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on May 22, 2015. Processed using calibrated near-infrared (MT2, CB2) filtered images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
