NASA took a significant step Tuesday toward allowing humans on the moon to “live off the land,” awarding several contracts to build landing pads, roads and habitats on the lunar surface, use nuclear power for energy, and even lay a high-voltage power line over half a mile....
ESA’s pioneering wind mission, #Aeolus, was guided to a re-entry over Antarctica last night, ensuring that any remaining hardware landed safely in the Atlantic 🌊🌍
This successfully demonstrated new techniques for #SpaceDebris mitigation – kudos to our colleagues at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt 🖖🤘
Some great pictures of the Aeolus team, led by Flight Operations Director Isabel Rojo, in the Main Control Room at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, as they prepare for the final re-entry phase of our pioneering atmospheric wind mission.
A bittersweet moment, of course, & I’m sure there will be quite some emotion in the room later. I’ve been part of it myself for other missions 👍
Today’s the day that Aeolus, ESA’s successful pioneering LiDAR mission to measure Earth’s wind, is due to meet its end, ironically enough at the hands of that wind as it descends into the atmosphere from space 🌍💨🛰️
Follow the drama on the live blog, as our colleagues at ESA mission operations in Darmstadt use the last of Aeolus’s propellant to make a semi-controlled re-entry ☄️😬🤞
Happy Moon Landing Day and #InternationalMoonDay !!! The Apollo program and Moon exploration is a life-long obsession of mine. I’m so excited for our return on Artemis 2 and 3!
Watching the Challenger doc on Netflix and thinking about how the first civilian in the space program was a wonderful Teacher. Reagan made a big speech about it when he announced a teacher would be selected. Her loss with the crew was devastating. Today all the civilians in the private space launches are rich and famous. It says alot about how our society has changed since 1986. #Challenger#Spaceflight#teacher#NASA#SpaceX#Bezos#Musk#BlueOrigin#VirginGalactic
"Heute um Mitternacht Mitteleuropäischer Sommerzeit hob die letzte Ariane-5-Rakete (VA261) vom europäischen Startplatz Kourou in Französisch-Guyana ab. Gemeinsam mit dem französischen Kommunikationssatelliten Syracuse-4B startete der deutsche Technologiedemonstrator und Kommunikationssatellit Heinrich Hertz."
Just moments ago, a piece of history: liftoff of the final ever flight of an Ariane 5 rocket, the 117th in the series, VA261 carrying the Heinrich-Hertz satellite & Syracuse 4B to space 🚀
Such an important launcher for ESA science over the decades, lifting XMM-Newton, Rosetta, Herschel, Planck, BepiColombo, JWST, & JUICE on the first part of their journeys of discovery 🙇♂️
The 117th & final launch of an #Ariane5 rocket is scheduled this afternoon.
Ariane 5 has played a crucial role in ESA's science programme from the very first flight, the failed launch of Cluster I in 1996, to almost the last, with JUICE's success in April.
And between have come XMM-Newton, Rosetta, Herschel, Planck, BepiColombo, & JWST, all outstanding scientific missions 👏
Thank you Arianespace & CNES, & ad astra, Ariane 5 🙇♂️🚀✨
Obligatory visit to Maruhn’s Welt der Getränke in Pfungstadt before the drive home to The Netherlands 🍻
Thank you again to everyone at our European Mission Operations Centre in Darmstadt for your hospitality & deep professionalism over the weekend as ever.
Take good care of our #ESAEuclid spacecraft & hopefully we’ll see some photons from the distant universe soon so our scientists can start investigating the dark side 🛰️👍
Here’s the time lapse we made of ESA/JAXA #BepiColombo’s third of six flybys of Mercury earlier this week, as the spacecraft emerged from behind the planet & watched it recede 🛰️🌓
There’s also a “shape from shading” 3D flyover of Manley Crater & Beagle Rupes made with the data by Kay Wohlfarth at TU Dortmund 🛸
All set to a new musical composition by our friend ILĀ 🎶
Late night update: we‘be been working hard in the past two days on a time lapse movie of the latest #MercuryFlyby by our #Bepicolombo mission, & wrapped it tonight 🎥🎞️🎬
So look forward to that tomorrow, including a new way of visualising the data, all accompanied by some lovely music.
It’s a very special privilege to be able to wake up in the morning & be among the first people on this planet to see new images beamed back overnight from another 😱
It’s equally special to be able to work alongside the amazing people spanning the many professions in & around ESA who make such things possible 🙇♂️
Looking forward to sharing the latest #BepiColombo pictures from Mercury with you later today 🛰️🙂👍
The first image from #BepiColombo's third flyby at Mercury is out, taken at lunchtime today on the inbound leg 🛰️📷
Closest approach at 236km above the surface is tonight at 19:34UTC/21:34CEST, with Bepi coming from the nightside, across the terminator, & into sunlight 🌑🌞
We'll aim to release those pictures, all taken with the black & white monitoring cameras, tomorrow 🙂👍
NASA will partner with seven U.S. companies to meet future business and government needs, ultimately benefitting human spaceflight and the U.S. commercial low Earth orbit economy.
NASA funds moon projects to help missions to ‘live off the land’ (www.msn.com)
NASA took a significant step Tuesday toward allowing humans on the moon to “live off the land,” awarding several contracts to build landing pads, roads and habitats on the lunar surface, use nuclear power for energy, and even lay a high-voltage power line over half a mile....
Seven US Companies Collaborate with NASA to Advance Space Capabilities (www.nasa.gov)
NASA will partner with seven U.S. companies to meet future business and government needs, ultimately benefitting human spaceflight and the U.S. commercial low Earth orbit economy.