Once you get to know your way around the sky and spend a lot of time under the stars you can start seeing amazing things. These are some of the things that I have seen […]
A Kiwi perspective on astronomy and space science news and how to get the most out the night sky
Tag: SpaceX
Highlights from the last few days about space and what’s coming up
Beresheet spacecraft entered lunar orbit and further speculation of the future of the SLS and commercial involvement in the Moon programme. The announcement that the Event Horizon Telescope may give us the first ever picture of the event horizon around the Super Massive Black Hole at the centre of our galaxy
NASA’s Exploration Mission 1 (EM1) and Who Might Launch it.
The Vice President of the US announced that the administration wants the US to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024. For this to happen there needs to be a way of getting them there and the SLS will probably not be ready.
What’s Happening in Space (and on Earth)
There’s a Rocket Lab Electron due to lift off on Wednesday, Beresheet is going to land on the Moon on the 11 April and SpaceX’s Starhopper might make it’s first tentative lift off with its one Raptor engine.
NASA Astronauts to the Moon – powered by SpaceX
NASA acknowledged that a commercial rocket might be an option to get Exploration Mission 1 off the ground. Could the first flight of the Orion Spacecraft be on a Falcon Heavy?
What Happened to the Google Lunar X-Prize Contestants?
The five teams that made it to the final of the Google Lunar X-Prize are still working on their launch plans, despite the competition ending with no winner, with Moon Express and SpaceIL planning to launch this year.
Starship and Super Heavy, the next phase of BFR from Elon Musk’s SpaceX
The Starship/Super Heavy combination that is the new name for SpaceX’s BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) is taking shape in Texas with construction of a test vehicle known as Starhopper.
The Week in Space to 5 July 2018
Some interesting news about space in the last week.
Rockets or catapults, the future of rockets to Low Earth Orbit
The game changer for access to space will be humanity moving away from the use of chemical rockets to get into orbit. The disrupters to the space industry will be the ones that perfect the alternative technologies.
Orbital ATK and the Cygnus spacecraft
Orbital ATK is one of the commercial providers of transport services to the International Space Station (ISS) with its Cygnus spacecraft.
The week in space, in a minute, 12 May 2018
The week in space includes the launch of the Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, the planned helicopter for Mars and the BepiColombo mission is getting closer to launch.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite – TESS
TESS was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX on 18 April. The satellite will survey the whole sky to look for exoplanets that transit their stars.
NASA and the Space Launch System and Mars, eventually
NASA’s plans to get to Mars are a bit slower than Elon Musk’s. They have many more steps and have plans to achieve some quite impressive things such as space station orbiting the Moon and capturing an asteroid.
Big Fat Rocket, Big Friendly Rocket, Big Falcon Rocket, Big ###### Rocket
SpaceX is well advanced in it’s plans to build a huge rocket to take humans to Mars and they plan to do this by 2024. This article has a closer look at the Big Falcon Rocket to see what’s so special about it.
Who’s launching what in January?
The launch schedule for January, hopefully this will be more successful than last month where a few launches were postponed until this month for various reasons.
Rocketing to Mars
2018 is shaping up to be a hot year when it comes to the launch systems to be developed to get humans to Mars.