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The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018 from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Parker Solar Probe is humanity’s first-ever mission into a part of the Sun’s atmosphere called the corona. Here it will directly explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Release Date: August 12, 2018
The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018 from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Parker Solar Probe is humanity’s first-ever mission into a part of the Sun’s atmosphere called the corona. Here it will directly explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Release Date: August 12, 2018
The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018 from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Parker Solar Probe is humanity’s first-ever mission into a part of the Sun’s atmosphere called the corona. Here it will directly explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Release Date: August 12, 2018
The Mobile Service Tower rolls back from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission in preparation for launch on Aug. 12 from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket that will launch NASA's Parker Solar Probe on a mission to study the Sun is seen as the Mobile Service Tower gantry at Space Launch Complex 37 rolls back on Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.
Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett Image Date: August 10, 2018
The Mobile Service Tower is rolled back to reveal the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Parker Solar Probe is humanity’s first-ever mission into a part of the Sun’s atmosphere called the corona. Here it will directly explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Image Date: August 10, 2018
NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. This week, German astronaut Alexander Gerst of ESA (European Space Agency) explored using a sextant with star maps as an emergency form of navigation in space. The study will provide insights that mission planners will use on future Orion spaceflight missions farther away from Earth. Christa’s Lost Lessons Brought to Life http://challenger.org/christa Challenger Center, in partnership with NASA and STEM on Station, worked to complete several of the lessons Christa McAuliffe had planned for the Challenger STS 51L Teacher in Space mission. Working with Astronauts Ricky Arnold and Joe Acaba, the demonstrations were filmed aboard the International Space Station and corresponding lessons were developed for classrooms.
Lesson topics include chromatography, effervescence, liquids in microgravity and Newton’s law. Several of the lessons were completed as originally planned by Christa and a few were reimagined based on materials available aboard the Space Station.
Sharon Christa McAuliffe (born Sharon Christa Corrigan; September 2, 1948 – January 28, 1986) was an American teacher from Concord, New Hampshire and one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center Duration: 2 minutes, 35 seconds Release Date: August 10, 2018
The International Space Station was orbiting above Germany when an Expedition 56 crew member photographed the English Channel and the North Sea, lit by the Sun's glint, separating the United Kingdom from the European countries of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst: "We released a Dragon into the wild to return carrying unveiled secrets and solved mysteries." Follow Alexander and the Horizons mission: http://bit.ly/AlexanderGerstESA and on bit.ly/HorizonsBlogESA
The SpaceX Dragon resupply ship, on its 15th Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-15) for NASA, is seen after robotic flight controllers released the spacecraft using the International Space Station’s robotic arm. Expedition 56 Flight Engineer Serena Auñon-Chancellor of NASA monitored its departure.
Dragon’s thrusters were fired to move the spacecraft a safe distance from the station before SpaceX flight controllers in Hawthorne, California, commanded its deorbit burn. The capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, where the SpaceX recovery team retrieved the capsule and its more than 3,800 pounds of cargo, including a variety of technological and biological studies.
NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the non-profit organization that manages research aboard the U.S. National Laboratory portion of the space station, receives time-sensitive samples and works with researchers to process and distribute them within 48 hours of splashdown.
Dragon is the only space station resupply spacecraft currently capable of returning cargo to Earth, and this was the second trip to the orbiting laboratory for this spacecraft. SpaceX launched its 15th NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission to the station June 29 from Space Launch Complex 40 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket that also previously launched NASA’s TESS mission to study exoplanets.
Credit: ESA/NASA-A.Gerst Image Date: August 3, 2018
The SpaceX Dragon resupply ship, on its 15th Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-15) for NASA, is seen before robotic flight controllers released the spacecraft using the International Space Station’s robotic arm. Expedition 56 Flight Engineer Serena Auñon-Chancellor of NASA monitored its departure.
Dragon’s thrusters were fired to move the spacecraft a safe distance from the station before SpaceX flight controllers in Hawthorne, California, commanded its deorbit burn. The capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, where the SpaceX recovery team retrieved the capsule and its more than 3,800 pounds of cargo, including a variety of technological and biological studies.
NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the non-profit organization that manages research aboard the U.S. National Laboratory portion of the space station, receives time-sensitive samples and works with researchers to process and distribute them within 48 hours of splashdown.
Dragon is the only space station resupply spacecraft currently capable of returning cargo to Earth, and this was the second trip to the orbiting laboratory for this spacecraft. SpaceX launched its 15th NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission to the station June 29 from Space Launch Complex 40 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket that also previously launched NASA’s TESS mission to study exoplanets.
Credit: ESA/NASA-A.Gerst Image Date: August 3, 2018
Is your alarm set? A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket will launch the Parker Solar Probe for NASA on Aug. 11. The launch window opens at 3:33am ET. Broadcast begins at 3am ET. Weather is currently 70% favorable for launch. Watch NASA TV: nasa.gov/nasatv Image: The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket payload fairing is seen with the NASA and Parker Solar Probe emblems, Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018 at Launch Complex 37, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Parker Solar Probe will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it.
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Image Date: August 8, 2018
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Merah Putih communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in Florida early Tuesday morning, August 7, 2018, for PT Telkom Indonesia, Indonesia's largest telecom operator. This was the first successful reuse of a Block 5—the first stage booster of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that is designed to be reused many times. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage, which previously flew on the first Block 5 mission in May 2018, landed on SpaceX's “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The Merah Putih satellite was deployed approximately 32 minutes after liftoff into its targeted Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). Merah Putih stands for the red and white colors of the Indonesian flag. The Indonesian satellite will have 60 active transponders—48 C-band transponders and 12 extended C-band transponders—that will cover South Asia and Southeast Asia, respectively. The satellite has an SSL 1300 modular platform with a designed lifespan of 15 or more years. The satellite was manufactured by California-based aerospace company SSL, a division of Maxar Technologies, (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates).
Image Credit: SpaceX Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States Image Date: August 7, 2018
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Merah Putih communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in Florida early Tuesday morning, August 7, 2018, for PT Telkom Indonesia, Indonesia's largest telecom operator. This was the first successful reuse of a Block 5—the first stage booster of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that is designed to be reused many times. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage, which previously flew on the first Block 5 mission in May 2018, landed on SpaceX's “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The Merah Putih satellite was deployed approximately 32 minutes after liftoff into its targeted Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). Merah Putih stands for the red and white colors of the Indonesian flag. The Indonesian satellite will have 60 active transponders—48 C-band transponders and 12 extended C-band transponders—that will cover South Asia and Southeast Asia, respectively. The satellite has an SSL 1300 modular platform with a designed lifespan of 15 or more years. The satellite was manufactured by California-based aerospace company SSL, a division of Maxar Technologies, (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates).
SSL, based in Palo Alto, California, is a provider of advanced spacecraft systems for commercial and government satellite operators. The company designs and manufactures spacecraft for services, such as direct-to-home television, video content distribution, broadband internet, mobile communications, in-orbit servicing, space exploration, and Earth observation. SSL is a Maxar Technologies company (NYSE: MAXR; TSX: MAXR). For more information, visit www.sslmda.com.
PT Telkom Indonesia is the largest telecommunications and network provider in Indonesia. The company offers a wide range of network and telecommunications services, including fixed wireline connections, cellular services, and internet and data communication services.
Image Credit: SpaceX Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States Image Date: August 6, 2018
Preparing to Launch U.S. Astronauts on American Soil in 2019
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner is go for launch, ready to take America back to space. The Starliner is a brand new, commercially developed spacecraft, that will usher in a new era of human space exploration. It joins a long line of spacecraft that Boeing or Boeing's heritage companies have developed in collaboration with NASA, including Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle.
“For the first time since 2011, we are on the brink of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil.” —NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine
Credit: Boeing Duration: 2 minutes, 30 seconds Release Date: August 7, 2018
ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst: Dramatic weather pattern over Portugal...Looks like a mixture of dust, sand and smoke." "Dramatische Wetterlage heute über Portugal. Sieht nach einer Mischung aus Staub, Sand und Rauch aus."
