Daily Archives: October 13, 2021

SpaceX's Crew-3 astronauts. (L to R) NASA's Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron and ESA's Matthias Mauer. Photo: NASA

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A crew of four is set to launch to the International Space Station at the end of the month, starting a six month mission on the orbiting lab.The three NASA astronauts and one European Space Agency astronaut are flying on SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule, launching from Kennedy Space Center on a Falcon 9 rocket.

One of those astronauts is Kayla Barron and she tells us the first rocket launch shell ever see in person will be the one shes sitting on top of. Well speak with Barron about her rookie mission to space, and what she expects to do when she gets to the ISS.

Then, a NASA spacecraft is set to head to clusters of asteroids living around Jupiter. The asteroids known as Trojans have never been visited by a spacecraft before and could hold the key to unlocking the secrets of the start of our solar system. NASA scientist Keith Noll joins the show to talk about these asteroids and what answers they may hold.

Originally posted here:
NASA's next space station astronaut & Lucy's mission to the Trojan asteroids - WMFE

Oct. 13, 2021, 2:57 p.m. ET

More private space missions are scheduled in the coming months, an indication of how the wealthy are increasingly able to buy trips into orbit, or just to the edge of space.

Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese fashion mogul, plans to spend 12 days at the International Space Station, and document the experience, starting on Dec. 8. The trip was arranged by Space Adventures, a company that facilitates private jaunts to space, working with Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.

Mr. Maezawa and his production assistant, Yozo Hirano, will travel to the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Mr. Maezawa has long had extraplanetary aspirations. In 2018, he signed up for a flight with SpaceX, Elon Musks company, in the hope of one day traveling around the moon, a flight that may be years from occurring.

In February, 2021, three private astronauts will also fly to the space station in a Crew Dragon capsule made by SpaceX and booked by the company Axiom Space. Michael Lpez-Alegra, a retired NASA astronaut and Axiom vice president, will join them as the missions commander.

The three passengers will stay aboard the station for 10 days, and have each paid $55 million for the opportunity.

Another forthcoming private spaceflight with Virgin Galactic, Blue Origins main competitor in suborbital space tourism, will carry passengers who are not relying on their private wealth for tickets. Instead, the customers work for the Italian government.

Two are officers from the Italian Air Force and a third is an Italian scientist. The purpose of the trip, which is billed as Virgin Galactics first commercial research mission, is to study the effects of the transition from gravity to microgravity on the human body and other payloads.

Oct. 13, 2021, 2:32 p.m. ET

Joey Roulette

The crew took questions from reporters and television crews for roughly 20 minutes before posing for photos with Blue Origin employees on the launch pad.

Oct. 13, 2021, 2:26 p.m. ET

Blue Origin wants to go to the moon, build larger rockets and, according to Mr. Bezos, eventually move all polluting industries off Earth and into space.

The company is developing New Glenn, a reusable rocket that will be able to send nearly 100,000 pounds of satellites and other spacecraft into low-Earth orbit. The rockets debut launch, planned for late next year, has been delayed for roughly two years.

It is producing engines, known as BE-4, that will power New Glenn. And as another line of revenue, the company is selling those engines to its potential rival, United Launch Alliance, a rocket company co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin that has contracts to launch many NASA and Pentagon spacecraft to orbit and beyond.

Blue Origin is also developing a moon lander in a partnership with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper, a company that worked on flight software for the Apollo missions. The lander, called Blue Moon, is designed to ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface. Blue Origin pitched Blue Moon to NASA for a $6 billion contract, but the agency, facing a funding shortfall, decided it could only afford to select a lower bid pitched by Elon Musks SpaceX instead. Blue Origin is suing NASA to overturn the decision.

Oct. 13, 2021, 2:22 p.m. ET

Joey Roulette

I wish I had broken the world record in the 10-yard dash, but unfortunately it was how old I was, Mr. Shatner said, responding to a question from a BBC reporter on how it felt to be the oldest person to go to space.

Oct. 13, 2021, 2:17 p.m. ET

Joey Roulette

During a live TV interview with a CNN reporter on the landing pad, Mr. Shatner said he felt his trip was more than tourism and something much deeper. Everyone needs to have the philosophical understanding of what were doing to Earth, he said.

Oct. 13, 2021, 2:09 p.m. ET

Joey Roulette

At a brief press conference at the pad where the New Shepard booster landed, Glen de Vries, one of the paying customers, said the crew had a moment of camraderie when they reached space. We actually just put our hands together, he said. Ms. Powers said we wanted to memorialize being together, there.

And then we enjoyed the view as much as we can, Mr. de Vries said

Oct. 13, 2021, 1:44 p.m. ET

transcript

transcript

Just unbelievable, unbelievable. I mean, you know, the little things but to see the blue color whip by, and now youre staring into blackness, thats the thing. The covering of blue is this sheet, this blanket, this comforter, this comforter of blue that we have around, we think, Oh, its blue sky. And then suddenly, you shoot through it all of the sudden as though youre whipping a sheet off you when youre asleep. And youre looking into blackness, into black ugliness and you look down, theres the blue down there and the black up there. And its just there is Mother Earth, comfort. And there is is there, death? I dont know was that death, is that the way death is? Whoop, and its gone. Jesus. It was so moving to me. What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. Im so filled with emotion about what just happened. I just its extraordinary, extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I dont want to lose it. Its so so much larger than me and life. And this is now the commercial, everybody it would be so important for everybody to have that experience.

A half-century ago, a television show told young people that space travel would be the coolest thing ever. Some of them were even inspired to work toward that goal. Science fiction met reality on Wednesday as one of those fans, now one of the richest people in the world, gave the shows leading actor a brief ride up into the ether.

The mission went according to plan. The aftermath appeared unscripted, and all the better for it.

William Shatner, eternally famous as Captain James T. Kirk on the original Star Trek, returned to Earth apparently moved by the experience beyond measure. His trip aboard Jeff Bezos rocket might have been conceived as a publicity stunt, but brushing the edge of the sky left the actor full of wonder mixed with unease:

It was unbelievable To see the blue cover go whoop by. And now youre staring into blackness. Thats the thing. The covering of blue, this sheet, this blanket, this comforter of blue that we have around us. We say, Oh thats blue sky. And then suddenly you shoot through it and all of a sudden, like you whip the sheet off you when youre asleep, youre looking into blackness.

Mr. Shatner was talking to Mr. Bezos immediately after exiting the capsule with the three other passengers. The others greeted their family and friends. Champagne corks popped. There was lots of laughter, high-spirited relief. But Mr. Shatner, a hale 90 standing in the West Texas dust, talked about space as the final frontier:

You look down, theres the blue down there, and the black up there. There is Mother and Earth and comfort and there is Is there death? I dont know. Was that death? Is that the way death is? Whoop and its gone. Jesus. It was so moving to me.

Mr. Bezos listened, still as a statue. Maybe he was just giving Mr. Shatner some space, but it was a sharp contrast to his appearance after his own brief spaceflight in July when he flew the same spacecraft as Mr. Shatner. Then, he held forth from a stage, rousing condemnation from critics of the vast company he founded as he thanked Amazons employees and customers for making it possible for him to finance his private space venture.

Or maybe Mr. Bezos was just acting naturally. His role model has always been the cool, passionless Mr. Spock rather than the emotional, impulsive Captain Kirk. Amazon, which prizes efficiency above all, was conceived and runs on this notion.

When he played at Star Trek as a boy, Mr. Bezos has said, he would sometimes take the role of the ships computer. Amazons voice-activated speaker Alexa was designed as a household version of the Star Trek computer, which always had the answer to every question.

The word death, repeatedly mentioned by Mr. Shatner in his post-flight monologue, is rarely thought of as a selling word for space tourism, which is after all what Blue Origin is promoting. But the actor did supply a positive endorsement.

Everybody in the world needs to do this, he said.

Oct. 13, 2021, 12:59 p.m. ET

After Blue Origins latest launch, much of the initial reaction focused more on William Shatners introduction to outer space than the particulars of the flight or issues with the company behind it.

Space agencies, celebrities and astronauts said they were thrilled to see Mr. Shatner, who is 90 and known to generations of science fiction fans as Captain James T. Kirk on the original Star Trek television series, become the oldest person to enter space.

Twitter accounts for the U.S. Space Force and NASA both congratulated Mr. Shatner, in messages that included emojis of the Vulcan hand gesture that means Live long and prosper.

You are, and always shall be, our friend, NASAs message said, paraphrasing what Spock, Captain Kirks longtime first officer, said to Mr. Kirk as he died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Sue Nelson, a science journalist who wrote a book about Wally Funk, the woman who became the oldest person in space on Blue Origins first crewed launch in July, wrote on Twitter that she initially had mixed feelings about today because William Shatner is about to break my friend Wally Funks short lived record.

Ms. Nelson, a Star Trek fan, later said that she loved Mr. Shatners emotional reaction upon landing.

Hes right of course, she said on Twitter. The Earths atmosphere is fragile. Space travel is extraordinary.

Astronauts congratulated Mr. Shatner, too. Garrett Reisman, a retired NASA astronaut, shared a photo of himself dressed as Captain Kirk.

This is a picture of a guy who went to space pretending to be a guy who pretended to be a guy who went to space who has now gone to space, Mr. Reisman said.

Another retired NASA astronaut, Nicole Stott, thanked Mr. Shatner on Twitter for sharing his feelings of awe and wonder after he left the capsule.

Mr. Shatner was emotional, and loquacious, after he returned to Earth. He embraced Jeff Bezos, who owns Blue Origin and flew on its voyage in July, and tried to capture the experience in words.

What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine, Mr. Shatner said, adding that I hope I never recover from this, I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I dont want to lose it.

Joey Roulette contributed reporting.

Oct. 13, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET

Almost 600 people have been in space, and before Wednesday, 48 of them were private individuals who were not government employees, according to data compiled by Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer and spaceflight data tracker. A little over a dozen of those 48 were tourists, while the rest included researchers or employees of space companies, like Ms. Powers, the Blue Origin executive flying with Mr. Shatner on behalf of the company.

The NS-18 crew has increased the number of private spacefarers to 52.

The first space tourist was Toyohiro Akiyama, a Japanese television journalist who launched to Mir, the Russian space station, in 1990. He spent seven days aboard. Picked among 163 candidates, the Tokyo Broadcasting Service paid for Mr. Akiyamas seat aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket, which until this year was the only vehicle that carried tourists to space.

Dennis Tito, an American engineer and businessman, became the first person to fund their own trip to space in 2001, launching to the International Space Station for an eight-day stay.

Other private individuals have gone to space, but they generally wouldnt be construed as tourists because they were traveling on something like an official business trip. That includes the Russian film crew that launched to the space station last week. Yulia Peresild, a Russian actress, and Klim Shipenko, a film director and producer, are shooting scenes on the orbital laboratory as part of the first full-length feature film made in space. The crew is backed by Channel One Russia and Roscosmos, Russias space agency.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:53 a.m. ET

Joey Roulette

Blue Origin says the crews capsule reached a peak altitude of 65.8 miles after ascending atop New Shepard at speeds of up to 2,235 miles per hour. In all, the mission lasted 10 minutes and 17 seconds

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:51 a.m. ET

Joey Roulette

The crew is expected to drive to the pad where the New Shepard booster landed to speak with reporters about their flight.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:29 a.m. ET

Mr. Shatner told Mr. Bezos, What I would love to do is to communicate as much as possible the jeopardy, the vulnerability of everything. He added, This air which is keeping us alive is thinner than your skin.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:28 a.m. ET

Blue Origin considers the customers who fly aboard the New Shepard spacecraft to be astronauts, but the Federal Aviation Administration, which formally grants governmental recognition to astronauts, has yet to say it agrees.

Since 2004, the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates how space companies run their launch sites, has awarded private crews aboard private spacecraft Commercial Space Astronaut Wings small gold pins that officially designate a passenger as a commercial astronaut.

The pins are akin to the badges awarded to military pilots who reached space in the 1960s, and only a handful of private citizens have received the wings. Beth Moses, Virgin Galactics chief astronaut instructor, was the most recent recipient after her SpaceShipTwo flight to space in 2019.

But all the private activity in space lately has spurred adjustments to the F.A.A.s pinning process.

On the day Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin and Amazon, launched to space in July, the agency revised its criteria for awarding the wings, requiring individuals who go to space to be classified as a crew member, rather than just a spaceflight participant.

To be a crew member, the person must have completed training before their mission on how to carry out his or her role on board or on the ground so that the vehicle will not harm the public, the rules state. Crew members also must have demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety.

Still, the head of the F.A.A.'s commercial space office also has discretion to grant an honorary astronaut status to anyone who flies to space and demonstrates extraordinary contribution or beneficial service to commercial spaceflight.

Blue Origin calls its New Shepard passengers astronauts and awarded its first crew Mr. Bezos, his brother Mark, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen its own company-branded pins in a ceremony hours after their flight. The crews of Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic flight in July and SpaceXs Inspiration4 orbital mission in September received similar pins from those companies.

Blue Origin has submitted applications to the F.A.A. for a formal designation of the passengers as commercial astronauts, but it has yet to receive a determination, a company spokeswoman said. The F.A.A. declined to say whether Mr. Shatner or any of his fellow passengers could be classified as commercial astronauts.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:26 a.m. ET

Joey Roulette

After celebrations around the capsule, the crew lined up to get custom astronaut pins from Blue Origin. Mr. Bezos fastened the pins to each passenger. OK, guys, we have four astronauts before you, he said.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:17 a.m. ET

Joey Roulette

"I'm so filled with emotion with what just happened, Mr. Shatner said to Mr. Bezos on the ground, breaking into tears. "I hope I never recover from this," he added.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:14 a.m. ET

Joey Roulette

Mr. Shatner was next to exit the capsule and began describing his experience to Mr. Bezos, Its indescribable, he said.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:14 a.m. ET

Joey Roulette

Family and friends met the passengers outside the capsule as they exited. Ms. Powers, the Blue Origin vice president, emerged first, hugging her sister.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:12 a.m. ET

Blue Origin has declined to publicly state a price for a ticket to fly on New Shepard. The company is nearing $100 million in sales so far, Mr. Bezos has said. But its unclear how many ticket holders that includes.

We dont know quite yet when Blue Origin will publicly announce a price, Mr. Bezos told reporters in July after his flight to space. Right now were doing really well with private sales.

Oliver Daemen, the Dutch teenager aboard Blue Origins first crewed flight in July, was occupying a seat that the company auctioned off for $28 million, a steep number that even shocked some company executives. Of that total, $19 million was donated equally to 19 space organizations.

Mr. Daemen, 18, wasnt the winning bidder. His father, a private equity executive, was the runner-up in the auction and was next in line after the actual winner. That individual, who has not been named, plunked down $28 million before postponing their trip over a scheduling conflict, Blue Origin said at the time.

Tickets to the edge of space on Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo were hiked to $450,000 in August, from $250,000, when the company reopened ticket sales after a yearslong hiatus.

Flights to orbit a much higher altitude than Blue Origin or Virgin Galactics trips go are far more expensive. Three passengers to the International Space Station next year are paying $55 million each for their seats on a SpaceX rocket, bought through the company Axiom Space.

Many wealthy customers and space company executives see the steep ticket prices as early investments into the nascent space tourism industry, hoping the money they put down can help lower the cost of launching rockets.

Oct. 13, 2021, 11:11 a.m. ET

Read the original post:
Highlights From William Shatners Blue Origin Rocket Trip to Space - The New York Times

By NASA // October 13, 2021

(NASA) Three space travelers living aboard the International Space Station, including a Russian actress and her producer-director, are set to return to Earth just after midnight on Sunday, Oct. 17.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos will be at the controls of the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, flanked by Russian actress Yulia Peresild and Russian producer-director Klim Shipenko, for the spacecrafts undocking from the stations Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module on Saturday, Oct. 16.

The trio will make a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan a little more than three hours later, at 12:36 a.m. EDT (10:36 a.m. Kazakhstan time) Sunday, Oct. 17.

Coverage of the crews farewells and hatch closure, undocking, and landing will air live on NASA TV, the agencys website, and the NASA app at the following times (all EDT):

4:15 p.m. Farewells and hatch closure (hatch closing at about 4:35 p.m.) 9 p.m. Soyuz undocking (undocking at 9:13 p.m.) 11:15 p.m. Deorbit burn (11:42 p.m.) and landing (12:36 a.m.)

After landing, the crew will return by Russian helicopters to the recovery staging city in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, before boarding a Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center aircraft to return to their training base in Star City, Russia.

Peresild and Shipenko arrived at the station on Oct. 5 aboard the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft with Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov for 12 days of filming their movie, Challenge, under a commercial agreement between Roscosmos and Moscow-based media entities. They served as spaceflight participants during their stay on the orbital complex.

Novitskiy returns to Earth after 191 days in space on his third mission that spanned 3,056 orbits of Earth and 80.9 million miles. At the time of landing, Novitskiy will have logged 531 days in space on his three flights.

When the Soyuz undocks, Expedition 66 will formally begin aboard the station. Remaining aboard the orbiting outpost will be commander Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency), NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, and Mark Vande Hei, JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.

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Excerpt from:
Russian Actress and Director Set to Return from International Space Station Aboard Soyuz Oct. 17 - SpaceCoastDaily.com

William Shatner, the 90-year-old veteran of countless imaginary space voyages playing Star Trek's Captain Kirk, blasted off for real Wednesday, becoming the oldest person to reach the final frontier in a PR bonanza for Jeff Bezos and his rocket company Blue Origin.

Over the course of 10 minutes and 17 seconds, Shatner and three crewmates took off atop a hydrogen-fueled rocket, climbed to edge of space 65.8 miles up and enjoyed three to four minutes of weightlessness, along with spectacular views of Earth, before plunging back to a gentle parachute-assisted touchdown.

Within minutes, Bezos and Blue Origin recovery crews were on the scene to open the spacecraft's hatch and welcome Shatner, Australian entrepreneur Chris Boshuizen, microbiologist Glen de Vries and Blue Origin executive Audrey Powers back to Earth.

Shatner cautiously made his way down a few short steps to the ground and was warmly embraced by Bezos. The actor grew emotional and was occasionally at a loss for words describing the flight to the man who made it possible.

"It was so moving to me," Shatner said. "This experience is something unbelievable."

He said he was overwhelmed, and that Bezos has given him the most profound experience he can imagine. "I'm so filled with emotion about what just happened ... it's extraordinary," he told Bezos.

"I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now," he said. "I don't want to lose it."

Video released after the flight showed Shatner and his crewmates floating about the cabin as the spacecraft reached space, all of them focused on the view outside as they unstrapped and moved about without worrying about up and down. Shatner appeared mesmerized, quietly gazing out at the black of space and the brilliant planet 65 miles below.

"Holy cow," Powers marveled.

Speaking with reporters at the base of their booster after the flight, de Vries said flying with Captain Kirk was "the ultimate manifestation of science fiction becoming science. But we went to space with our friend Bill."

"Scared little Billy, frightened Bill," Shatner joked. "I'm so glad you said that. Captain Kirk is a fictional figure. I'm flesh and blood."

Said Boshuizen: "I can't think of a better ambassador for the future of humanity than his character James T. Kirk on Star Trek and that amazing future. So to fly with a true ambassador for what we can become on this planet, I think it's fantastic."

The flight marked only the second crewed launch of a New Shepard capsule since Bezos, his brother Mark, 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen took off July 20 onthe company's first such flight.

Daemen, then 18, holds the record for youngest person to fly in space, but Shatner eclipsed Funk's record by eight years and John Glenn's mark before that by 13.

"I want to see space, I want to see the Earth, I want to see what we need to do to save Earth," Shatner told CBS Mornings' Gayle King before launch. "I want to have a perspective that hasn't been shown to me before. That's what I'm interested in seeing."

He got his wish.

Boshuizen and de Vries paid undisclosed sums for their seats aboard the New Shepard, but Shatner was an invited guest of Blue Origin. Powers, a former NASA flight controller now Blue Origin vice president of flight operations, flew as a company representative.

While the New Shepard rocket and capsule are only capable of up-and-down sub-orbital flights, Shatner and his crewmates endured the same liftoff accelerations space shuttle astronauts once felt about three times the normal force of gravity and even higher "G loads" during descent back into the lower atmosphere.

Even so, Shatner and his crewmates were considered passengers, not astronauts, aboard the automated New Shepard. But professional astronauts nonetheless welcomed them to the brotherhood of space travelers.

Especially Shatner.

"I'm impressed. I mean, he's 90 years old and showing that somebody at his age can actually fly to space," Matthias Maurer, a European Space Agency astronaut launching to the International Space Station at the end of the month, told CBS News.

"Even if it's, let's say, just a suborbital flight, I'm highly impressed, and I wish him all the best. Hopefully it will be the experience of a lifetime. And yeah, I hope many more people will follow his steps and also experience space."

Added Kayla Barron, a Navy submariner who's flying to the station with Maurer and two others aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule: "It's really awesome! Like who wouldn't want to see William Shatner fly in space? Like, I don't know anybody who wouldn't."

"For us watching these new companies with different missions, different equipment, different architectures for how they think about bringing more human beings into human spaceflight is just a win for all of us," she said. "So we're really excited to watch that flight, for sure."

Blue Origin's 18th New Shepard flight began a few minutes behind schedule when the BE-3 engine powering the company's 53-foot-tall booster ignited with a roar, throttled up to 110,000 pounds of thrust and lifted off from Launch Site One at the company's West Texas launch site near Van Horn.

Climbing straight up, the booster quickly accelerated as it consumed propellant and lost weight, reaching a velocity of about 2,200 mph and an altitude of some 170,000 feet before engine shutdown.

The New Shepard capsule then separated from the booster at an altitude of about 45 miles and both continued climbing upward on ballistic trajectories, rapidly slowing.

The onset of weightlessness began moments after separation. All four passengers were free to unstrap and float about as the capsule reached the top of its trajectory and arced over for the long fall back to Earth.

The New Shepard capsule is equipped with some of the largest windows in a currently flying spacecraft, giving Shatner, de Vries, Boshuizen and Powers hemispheric views of Earth far below.

"Yeah, you know, weightless, my stomach went up, ah, this is so weird, but not as weird as the covering of blue," said Shatner. "This is what I never expected."

"It's one thing to say, oh, the sky, and (it's) fragile, it's all true. But what ... is unknown until you do it, is there's this pure, soft blue. Look at the beauty of that color! And it's so thin, and you're through it in an instant."

Plunging back into the dense lower atmosphere, the passengers, back in their padded, reclining seats, were briefly subjected to more than five times the normal force of gravity before three large parachutes deployed and inflated, slowing the craft to about 15 mph.

An instant before touchdown, compressed-air thrusters were programmed to fire, slowing the ship to just 2 mph or so for landing.

A few minutes earlier, the New Shepard booster flew itself back to a pinpoint landing a few miles away, reigniting its BE-3 engine, deploying four landing legs and settling to a concrete landing pad. Assuming no problems are found, the rocket will be refurbished and prepared for another flight.

View original post here:
William Shatner sets record in space with Blue Origin spaceflight - CBS News

NASA's newest asteroid mission, a spacecraft targeting space rocks that orbit ahead of and behind Jupiter, is ready to begin its journey.

Called Lucy, the mission is scheduled to launch on Saturday (Oct. 16) at 5:34 a.m. EDT (0934 GMT) aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. You can watch the launch live at Space.com courtesy of NASA, with coverage starting at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT).

"This team has put in so much work to build a spacecraft that is truly a work of art," Donya Douglas-Bradshaw, the Lucy project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said during a news conference held on Wednesday (Oct. 13). "The spacecraft work is complete, it's been powered on, the team is monitoring it and we are ready to launch."

Related: Lucy mission to explore 7 Trojan asteroids explained by NASA

The launch will kick off a 12-year journey during which the Lucy spacecraft will swing past eight different asteroids in hopes of helping scientists understand how our solar system came to be the way it is today.

Most of those asteroids belong to a category called Trojans, which are trapped in gravitationally stable points of a planet's orbit. Lucy's targets are Trojan asteroids that orbit with Jupiter, one clump about 60 degrees ahead of the planet and the other about 60 degrees behind it, a cosmic posse befitting the solar system's largest planet.

The $981 million Lucy mission will give scientists their first-ever up-close look at any Trojan, but on top of that, the mission is carefully designed to give scientists a taste of the range of rocky bodies in the region. In the long term, scientists hope that the mission will give them a better sense of how the solar system reached its present arrangement.

But before Lucy can tackle any science, it has to bid farewell to Earth and the humans who built it.

"I'm really excited, but I'm also a little sad," Cathy Olkin, the mission's deputy principal investigator and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Colorado, told Space.com shortly after the spacecraft was loaded into the fairing in preparation for launch. "I know that it's preparing for its journey and this is what we built it to do."

Lucy won't be riding quite the rocket that the United Launch Alliance (ULA) had in mind. The company was also due to launch an uncrewed test flight dubbed OFT-2 of Boeing's Starliner capsule to the International Space Station this summer, but Boeing had to retreat from the launch pad to address a valve issue in the spacecraft.

"We were able to make that a positive in that we were able to use the OFT[-2] booster and convert it for use for Lucy," Omar Baez, launch director for Lucy at NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said during the news conference.

Converting the booster required removing two solid rocket motors, replacing an avionics box and a few other modifications to support a fairing in place of a capsule, he and ULA Chief Operating Officer John Elbon noted.

"I think overall it ended up in a situation that worked out really well," Elbon said of the switch.

The Lucy team is hoping to get the mission on its way as early in the three-week launch period as possible to ensure the spacecraft can get on its way. Fortunately, the weather forecast looks quite promising for the mission's approximately 75-minute launch window on Saturday, according to the mission's launch weather officer, Jessica Williams of the 45th Weather Squadron, who called it "a beautiful morning for launch" during the news conference.

If the mission can't launch on its first opportunity, things begin to look a little grimmer: The spacecraft's Sunday (Oct. 17) opportunity offers just a 50% chance of cooperative weather as tall cumulus clouds and rainshowers threaten; meanwhile, Monday offers 60% odds of favorable weather for launch due to lingering showers and winds.

After launch, Lucy will conduct two flybys of Earth to adjust its trajectory and send the mission out through the solar system. The spacecraft will make its first flyby in April 2025, of a main-belt asteroid called Donaldjohanson; the first Trojan flyby will occur in August 2027. Most of the mission's visits will occur in 2027 and 2028; its final planned flyby will take place in March 2033.

However, the spacecraft's trajectory will continue carrying it between the two Trojan swarms for about a million years; the first extra loop or two may yield additional science results if the spacecraft remains in good condition.

First, of course, Lucy has to launch.

"I'm feeling really good about it," Kevin Berry, an aerospace engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center and flight dynamics team leader for the Lucy mission, told Space.com. "We're in amazing shape and I'm just excited about getting out there and actually navigating to things."

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Read the original:
NASA's daring Lucy asteroid mission is ready to launch - Space.com

History was made at Mary Hare school this week as its pupils made contact with the International Space Station (ISS) as it passed overhead.

At precisely 12 minutes past 12, direct contact was made with an astronaut aboard the ISS, with the help of Newbury and District Amateur Radio Society.

We are aiming quite high today, the spokesperson for the Newbury and District Amateur Radio Society (NADARS), Lloyd Farington, told students as they awaited the much anticipated contact from space.

The International Space Station is 400km above us. It is going 17,000km an hour. It is amazing what we are going to do today.

Around 10 pupils from Mary Hare were prepared with questions, chosen by them, to ask NASA astronaut, Mark Vande Hei as he passed above them in space.

Mr Farington said: Its a world first. This is the first time a group of deaf children speak to the space station.

The school motto is about aiming high and we may get much higher today, higher than a space station.

As members of the radio society set up equipment for the long distance contact to take place, pupils posed questions to guest speakers from the UK space station and NADARS.

Operation Head of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Ciaran Morgan said: It is a first for us so we are delighted to be able to do this.

It feels challenging. We are going to be taking questions, and using technology, converting speech into text and putting it up onto the screen, so that the students can read it.

While science talk, with all its jargon, might seem alien to many children, the pupils of Mary Hare listened eagerly as former astronaut trainer, Susan Buckle, from the UK Space Station told them everything she knew about things beyond Earth.

She then proceeded to show the children various satellites, some the size of a hand held cube, which she had with her, to others the size of cars and even tennis courts, which she, of course, could not bring along.

The presentation continued until five minutes were left before contact.

When the radio society opened up to receive audio, white noise fell over the entire hall.

Mr Farington sent over a message asking astronaut, Mr Vande Hei: NA1CC, this is GBMHN are you receiving, over?

Static noise continued to fill the silence until a response came and the questions started rolling in.

The pupils asked Mr Vande Hei what his favourite space technology was, whether he has to learn sign language, how he showers in zero gravity and how he would evacuate if there was a fire.

He was also asked if mobile phones work, what the Earth looks like from space and what the Northern Lights look like too.

To which he told them that the Northern Lights looked like a curtain or waterfall in the darkness of light and the earth looks like the moment in winter when you open the door to the blanket whiteness of snow.

They also discovered that he had been in space for 186 days so far, and a total of 354 days in his life.

Mr Vande Hei concluded the session by thanking everyone for "making his day".

He said: You all just made my day thank you for the opportunity, thank you for the wonderful questions and for sharing this with me, over.

Science teacher at Mary Hare, Alex Ayling said the project was two years in the making after being held up by Covid restrictions.

He said: It feels great, it is a great opportunity for our students.

It all demonstrates to them what they can achieve and what they can overcome.

Mr Alying also said that he hopes this may get the children interested science.

One Mary Hare pupil, Rosie Harris said: I do love getting involved with sciences, it is very interesting to see all of those radios and stuff, getting in contact.

Another year 9 pupil, Jasper Loten, said he was very excited to speak directly to an astronaut.

He said: I told my parents and they were very excited, theyre really proud.

I practiced my question over and over again to feel confident."

Mr Farrington told the pupils: You are going to be writing history.

It is a first time ever hearing impaired children have ever spoken to an astronaut about the space station.

Pupil, Ollie Dow asked Mr Vande Hei what he would take to space if he could, to which he replied My wife, life is much better with her.

Ollie said: It was quite interesting, how they reacted to my question.

It was really fun.

The contact with the ISS can be seen online at: https://live.ariss.org/

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Mary Hare pupils reach for the stars in contact with International Space Station, a world first for deaf children - Newbury Today

Chinas Tiangong Space Station soon will receive its second batch of astronauts. Shenzhou 13 is scheduled to be launched on Oct. 16, bringing three astronauts to the space station on a six-month mission.

The aerospace industry, which spans a host of applications from aviation to industrial and military, has taken innovationin plastic materials into a broader space. While metals remain mainstays in the aerospace industry, since the 1970s plastics have enabled key breakthroughs, notably by reducing aircraft weight by as much as 50%.

Beyond lightweighting, plastics have been meeting the aerospace industrys requirements for strength and durability; resistance to corrosion and fatigue; impact-resistance; thermal stability; and ease of assembly. Materials such as polyetheretherketone (PEEK), polyimide (PI), polyamide-imide (PAI), polychlorotrifluoroethylene (PCTFE), among others, are now being tapped for their inherent properties.

The shift from heavy metals to lightweight plastic materials brought to the fore the use of carbon fiberreinforced plastic. Carbon-fiber composites have been used to produce large, complex parts for the aerospace industry. From narrow-body aircraft such as the Airbus 320 to the top-selling Airbus A350 and Boeing 787, material innovations have created major technological leaps in the aviation industry.

The wide-body Airbus A350 XWB is made up of more than 50% composites, helping to achieve a 25% reduction in fuel cost. The A350 XWBs wing, which measures 32 x 6 meters, is the biggest single aviation part produced from carbon fiberreinforced plastic.

The Boeing 787 is made of 50% composites by weight and 80% by volume; composites enabled a total 20% weight reduction. Carbon fiber has led to tougher body frames at reduced weight, letting the aircraft carry higher numbers of passengers at lower fuel costs.

High-performance plastics are extensively used in the space program, from helmets made of polycarbonate and the protective equipment and space suits worn by astronauts to the interior parts and structures of the spacecraft.

China aims to transform itself into an aviation powerhouse, drawing on its more than 70 years of technological experience in this area. The countrys decision to implement a manned space program in 1992 has reaped tremendous developments. The launch of the Shenzhou-12 crewed spaceship in June 2021 to Chinas earth-orbiting space station Tianhe was a major step toward the construction of Chinas permanent space station. The three-person crew in the return capsule of Shenzhou-12 marked another milestone in Chinas space program, noted the release from Chinaplas organizers.

A special exhibit at next years Chinaplas will highlight the use of plastics in the aviation and aerospace industries. Chinaplas 2022 is scheduled for April 25 to 28 in Shanghai. More information is on the Chinaplas website.

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Plastics, Composites Venture into Orbit and Beyond - Plastics Today

Earlier this week, a Soyuz spacecraft launched to the International Space Station with three people on board. But only one of them was a cosmonaut. The other two crew members were Russian actress Yulia Peresild and film producer Klim Shipenko. They will be on the ISS for 12 days to film scenes for an upcoming movie, called Challenge.

NASA says the film crew is there under a commercial agreement between Roscosmos and Moscow-based media entities, adding that the launch will mark the expansion of commercial space opportunities to include feature filmmaking.

Veteran cosmonaut, Anton Shkaplerov, is on his fourth flight to space. He will actually be assisting with the filming for the movie.

This brings the total on board the ISS to 10, as the three space flyers join Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency), NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov. Vande Hei is currently working towards completing the longest single spaceflight by an astronaut in U.S. history, at 355 days. Hes scheduled to return to Earth in March 2022.

While astronauts have helped film previous documentaries about the ISS and the Hubble Space Telescope, this is the first movie with real actors to actually be filmed in space. Russian journalist Vitaly Egorov told NPR that Russias space agency made no secret of filmmaking junket, saying that the project promotes our space program and shows it hasnt gathered cobwebs, that were still flying and can come up with interesting ideas.

Some reports say NASA is working with Tom Cruise to shoot a film in outer space.

Related: Its Official: William Shatner Will be Flying to Space With Blue Origin

The Russian film is about a surgeon, played by Peresild who has to operate on a sick cosmonaut in space because his medical condition prevents his return to Earth. The real launch was filmed as part of the movie, with the Baikonur Cosmodrome becoming a film set.

The real docking of the Soyuz to the ISS created a little drama because of communications issues that led to Shkaplerov taking manual control of the spacecraft to complete the docking. This event added about 10 minutes to the expected docking time, which cut it close to when there was an known upcoming brief communications blackout.

Anton, we have very little time left, Russian mission control said. After that, just as you trained for. Youll be fine.

I can see everything really well, Shkaplerov radioed down, shortly before safely docking.

Whether that bit of drama will be added to the movie is not known at this time.

When the space flyers came on board, some on Twitter wondered why Peresild was wearing a red uniform which on the Star Trek shows and movies is the characters who are expendable and quite often end up killed.

Cosmonaut Shkaplerov is part of Expedition 66, a long-term mission expected to last 174 days, while the spaceflight participants Shipenko and Peresild will just stay onboard for less than two weeks to shoot their scenes.

They are expected to return to Earth with Novitskiy Oct. 16 on another Soyuz craft, which has been docked at the space station for several months. They will make a parachute-assisted landing on the Kazakh steppe.

Lead image caption: The Soyuz MS-19 rocket with three Russian crewmates aboard ascends into space shortly after launching under clear blues skies in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA

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Russian Actor and Filmmaker are On the Space Station to Shoot Scenes for a Film - Universe Today

Swiss researchers say they have completed the most detailed virtual reality (VR) map of the universe ever created.

The map permits users to travel through space and time, the researchers said in a recent statement. It can be imagined as a kind of Google Earth, but for the universe. The map was created by a team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).

With the help of VR headsets, users can visit places in the universe virtually. This includes the International Space Station, the Moon, Saturn and far away exoplanets.

The software program is called the Virtual Reality Universe Project, or VIRUP. The researchers said they combined the largest data set of information about the universe to create the three-dimensional (3D) experience.

People can see the virtual universe through VR equipment or with 3D glasses in a theater. A personal computer can also be used to see the universe in a non-3D way.

Jean-Paul Kneib is the director of EPFL's astrophysics laboratory. He told The Associated Press one of the best parts of the project was putting together parts of the data set into one framework.

You can see the universe at different scales -- nearby us, around the Earth, around the solar system, at the Milky Way level," Kneib said. "To see through the universe and time up to the beginning -- what we call the Big Bang." Many scientists believe the Big Bang is the explosion that created the universe.

VIRUP produces images that can appear as close as one meter or seemingly at an infinite distance. It is available to everyone for free, but does require at least a computer and is best experienced with VR equipment that can also show 3D images.

It aims to get many kinds of visitors. This includes both scientists looking to get a virtual picture of the data they collect and people seeking a new way to explore the universe.

The software has been released in its first, or beta version. This version can run on personal computers, but not Mac computers from Apple.

Downloading the software and content can be difficult for less skilled computer users. Users seeking the best experience will also need a powerful computer with a lot of storage.

There are different versions of the software. A smaller version is aimed at the public and a larger one is meant for scientists or astronomy experts.

The project combines information from eight databases. It includes at least 4,500 known exoplanets, tens of millions of galaxies and hundreds of millions of space objects. More than 1.5 billion light producing objects from the Milky Way alone are included.

The researchers expect to continually add data, meaning the virtual experience will keep getting better with time. Future databases could include space rocks called asteroids in our solar system or farther objects in our galaxy.

Yves Revaz is an astrophysicist with the EPFL who spoke to the AP about the effort. He called the system a very efficient way of visiting all the different scales that compose our universe. Revaz added: A very important part of this project is that it's a first step toward treating much larger data sets which are coming."

Im Bryan Lynn.

The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

_________________________________________________

virtual reality (VR) n. a set of images and sounds produced by a computer to represent a real place or situation

headset n. a device worn on the head that permits the use to see and hear computer images

exoplanet n. a planet that orbits a star outside our solar system

three-dimensional (3D) adj. having or appearing to have length, depth and height

framework n. a set of ideas or facts that provide support for something

scale n. the size or level of something

infinite adj. extremely large or great

efficient adj. working well and not wasting time or energy

compose v. to be the parts that something consists of

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New Map of the Universe Lets Users Travel Through Space and Time - VOA Learning English

A Nasa astronaut who brought a tin whistle which once belonged to the late Chieftains legend Paddy Maloney has said he was the kind of guy that once hes been somewhere hes always going to have a presence there.

ady Coleman posted a photo of Paddys tin whistle looking down on earth from the International Space Station (ISS) after the news broke of his death on Tuesday.

Speaking to Independent.ie, Ms Coleman said: Just because I came home, and I brought the whistle home, doesnt mean theres not a piece of Paddy out there in space.

In 2011 Ms Coleman travelled to the International Space Station on a six-month mission and said she had to be very careful about what she brought with her.

Taking something to space is very personal. We dont get very much room to do that and theres a certain amount of trust involved. It has to be something that agrees with the space mission, which is that even though only a few of us get to go and explore, we bring other people with us and that why were allowed to bring these kind of things.

The whistle and the flute were both part of a very official allocation where we get to bring things with us that will help people on Earth to understand what we do up there and why we go and hope that they can see themselves up there too, she said.

The whistle and flute in question belonged to Paddy and his Chieftains bandmate Matt Molloy.

Ms Coleman said when she asked the two musicians what they would like her to bring for them, they both selected items which were close to their hearts.

[Paddy] chose the tin whistle because its so characteristic of him. He liked these generation tin whistles and theyre really not very expensive. Everyone can kind of go and buy one, so I think he liked that he was sending something not so very precious and something that everyone could play up to space.

I also brought an E Flat Irish flute given to me by Matt Molloy. That type of flute is like a treasure of Ireland and I think he felt like it belonged to Ireland and by sending that he was bringing other flute players with it, she said.

Ms Coleman who was immortalised on an Irish stamp in 2019 has always been a fan of Irish music and said its about making a community whether youre in a pub or sitting on a bench or youve gone to the space station.

She met Paddy years earlier through his son Padraig who was an intern at Nasa. She began playing music with Padraig and others from Nasa, including another astronaut famous in Ireland, Chris Hadfield.

Mr Hadfield and Ms Coleman, who played in a folk and Celtic music group called Bandella, were invited to play at the Lorraine Celtic Music Festival in France at Paddys request.

Ms Coleman said: Paddy was all about family, family for music and also for family.

She said the support he gave his fellow musicians and the sense of community which he always strived for was epitomised when he joined the band on stage in France.

He goes, oh no heres the deal, were playing together. But when youre playing and Paddy Maloney starts into a solo you cant help but take your whistle down and stop, but he looked me right in the eye and took his whistle down as if to say if youre not playing, Im not playing.

For me he really had a way of making every stage the site of family meeting, she added.

Following the announcement of Paddys death, Ms Coleman sought to immortalise him one more time by posting the image of his tin whistle on Twitter.

With the image she wrote a commemorative message saying: I loved playing Paddy Moloneys tin whistle on the ISS while floating/watching Earth go by. Paddy had the rare ability to connect w/ people across the globe & I treasured our time together. My heart is w/ his family & musical family everywhere-he/his music will forever be missed.

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'Just because I brought Paddy's tin whistle home from space, it doesn't mean there's not a piece of him still out there,' says Nasa astronaut -...