Made me think of
Posted on 11/10/2017 4:46:37 PM PST by BenLurkin
Saturday's launch will kick off Orbital ATK's eighth commercial cargo run to the ISS for NASA. The Cygnus spacecraft — which is named S.S. Gene Cernan, after the late Apollo astronaut, who was the last person to walk on the moon — is loaded up with supplies, equipment and a variety of scientific experiments. One of these investigations will study the effect of the microgravity environment on bacterial antibiotic resistance, and another will look into plant growth in space.
Orbital ATK isn't the only private company with a NASA ISS cargo contract. SpaceX flies such uncrewed missions as well, using its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.
There is a complicating factor, however.
"We'll be flying into the sunrise, so it may make it a little harder to view it far down range," Kurt Eberly, Antares deputy program manager at Orbital ATK, said at a prelaunch news conference today (Nov. 10). "But near range, it should be plenty viewable."
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Made me think of
Along with the music?
From the article...
I live on the east coast. I’m not as coastal as I used to be...
... But when I lived in CT I would look to the sky hoping to see a rocket coming down.. not going up. Ick. The east coast.
Bookmark
Speakig of EST rising...
thx!
Cool! Thanks for posting it.
European Space Agency says the out of control satellite is expected to hit between January and March 2018... so is Britain safe?
By Jasper Hamill
November 9, 2017
An out of control Chinese space station could smash into a major world city at the beginning of 2018.
The European Space Agency said the 8.5-tonne Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace”, satellite could hit “any spot” between two latitude lines in the northern and southern hemispheres.
ESA experts said the 12-metre long craft would crash into Earth’s atmosphere at some point between January and March 2018.
The UK should be safe, according to ESA’s calculations, but New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Rome, Istanbul and Tokyo are among major cities that could be at risk - although the potential impact area is so large that residents shouldn’t be too worried about impending death from above.
Holger Krag, head of ESA’s Space Debris Office, said: ““Owing to the geometry of the station’s orbit, we can already exclude the possibility that any fragments will fall over any spot further north than 43ºN or further south than 43ºS.
“This means that re-entry may take place over any spot on Earth between these latitudes, which includes several European countries, for example.”
“The date, time and geographic footprint of the re-entry can only be predicted with large uncertainties. Even shortly before re-entry, only a very large time and geographical window can be estimated.”
Although it’s hoped the craft will burn up in the atmosphere, ESA said “some portions of it will survive and reach the surface”.
However, it was quick to stress that no human has been killed by space debris throughout the history of spaceflight
Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard University astrophysicist, previously warned there was no way of telling exactly where the space station was going to plunge to Earth.
“You really can’t steer these things,” he said last year.
“Even a couple of days before it re-enters we probably won’t know better than six or seven hours, plus or minus, when it’s going to come down.”
The station will reduce significantly in size as the Earth’s atmosphere burns it up.
However, large chunks of metal could still fall to Earth and injure or kill anyone present at the impact site.
McDowell added: “There will be lumps of about 100kg or so, still enough to give you a nasty wallop if it hits you.”
Reminds me of the excitement when ‘Skylab’ was coming down. The Soviets made threats over any damage to their territory/people.
No one may have been killed, but space debris had at least once struck a human being. And smashed through a car trunk.
Thanks Ben,
We will go out in our front yard and watch it shoot off.
About 100 miles north of here and the skies are crystal clear.
Link is listed in article, this is for those that don’t read the article. :D
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