I was downtown Toronto this morning, dressed in a suit and holding my umbrella to stay dry and navigate the city streets as they were soaked with rain. I was headed to the CBC building on John street to do an interview about the SpaceX CRS-7 mission that would launch an hour later. This would be a very important mission, the seventh of twelve ISS resupply missions contracted by NASA. It was also the third attempt at a secondary goal – landing the first stage launch vehicle, the Falcon 9 rocket, upright on an ocean platform, a feat that had...
Not one person’s mom, but specifically an entire nation’s. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission is lovingly known as MOM and has been sending back science data that has put India on the Space Exploration Map, if there ever was one. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched the ambitious but cost-effective MOM Orbiter on November 5th, 2013. With a bill of only 73 Million dollars, its the most cost-effective Mars mission ever, yet its sending back lovely images and science data that is worth every penny, at least to a biased spaceflight enthusiast such as myself. Whatever you feel about the...
It sounds completely like science fiction, something out of a campy space thriller where the protagonist is a miner taking a daily shuttle to the Moon to mine all the precious metals that the Earth needs to sustain itself. But in real life, for a long time, it was thought that the Moon was a dead rock, completely useless to humanity except as the gravitational force to provide the amazing tides in the bay of Fundy. Today we know so much more about the Moon, and its value has (pun intended) skyrocketed. For one, the low gravity of the Moon...
Eight minutes after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a Russian Proton-M rocket experienced a catastrophic failure in its third stage rocket, resulting in the complete atmospheric burn-up of the rocket and its payload, a Mexican Communications Satellite. After launching at 11:47am local time in Kazakhstan, the rocket experienced an emergency situation 497 seconds into the flight, reported as a failure in the rocket’s Breeze-M third stage. The carrier rocket was launching the Mexsat 1 communications satellite, known as Centenario, into orbit, in a contract with the Mexican government. After reaching a 161 Km altitude, the rocket failed and fell back to...
As the capsule separates from the first stage rocket, the second stage booster takes over and sends Dragon into orbit around the Earth to rendezvous with it’s target a few hours from now. At this point the mission is a complete success from NASA’s perspective, but to Elon Musk and the rest of the SpaceX team, the real challenge is just beginning. They have to land that first stage rocket on a 300 x 170 foot barge in the vast ocean, or risk losing millions of dollars in their investment. Here’s how it went. Okay not so well, but arguably...
Tis the season, as they say. This year is a good one for space missions with the March arrival of the Dawn spacecraft at Ceres and the July fly-by of Pluto by new horizons. Dawn made history by being the first ever spacecraft to orbit a dwarf planet, and new horizons will provide the first ever pictures of the surface of Pluto in unprecedented detail. I can barely contain my excitement, after having watched the launch of New Horizons live on NASA TV in 2006. I thought about what life would be like in 2015 and what Pluto would look...
When Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield was in space, on the International Space Station (ISS), he stayed there for six months, the standard length of stay for an astronaut. On the ISS, three of the six-person crew are replaced every three months. After returning to Earth, Hadfield could barely walk. He had lost bone density and muscle mass, his immune system weakened, cardiovascular functions slowed, and he produced less red blood cells. The lack of gravity is bad for humans, The longest a human being has ever been in space was Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who was in space for a staggering...
Pretty cool footage of the Orion capsule as it lands in the Pacific Ocean after last week’s test flight. Recovered 600 Miles South-West of San Diego, the test flight was a complete success. The footage from the airborne drone is especially amazing.
After yesterday’s scrubbed launch due to valve issues, the Orion spacecraft has launched on its first full test flight aboard a Delta IV rocket. This is the first step for humanity to reach beyond the Moon, and the Orion craft will eventually carry astronauts Watching it live and seeing everyone in the space flight community on twitter talking about it and posting pictures really makes you feel like a part of the mission itself. I feel like I’m there in mission control along with the NASA staff, and having followed the progress of the mission for so long it feels...
It’s finally time for humanity to take the next great leap into the great beyond. We are natural explorers, and the time to explore a new frontier is now. Humans will soon go beyond the Moon, and we will venture there on the Orion Capsule, powered by the sails of the Delta IV rocket. You may have seen some of my other posts about it, or an old infographic of the flight procedure. The launch window is opening at 7:05 am EST today! It will have a 2 hour – 39 minute launch window. But if the weather is clear it...
