OrbitalHub

SpaceX dixit:

“When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb)—a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel–Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, at one-third the cost. Falcon Heavy draws upon the proven heritage and reliability of Falcon 9.

Its first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit. Falcon Heavy was designed from the outset to carry humans into space and restores the possibility of flying missions with crew to the Moon or Mars.”

Video credit: SpaceX

SpaceX dixit:

“When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb)—a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel–Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, at one-third the cost.

Falcon Heavy’s first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft.

Following liftoff, the two side boosters separate from the center core and return to landing sites for future reuse. The center core, traveling further and faster than the side boosters, also returns for reuse, but lands on a drone ship located in the Atlantic Ocean.

At max velocity the Roadster will travel 11 km/s (7mi/s) and travel 400 million km (250 million mi) from Earth.”

Video credit: SpaceX

They will always be remembered…

Apollo 1 (January 27, 1967)

Virgil “Gus” Grissom – Commander, Edward White – Command Pilot, Roger Chaffee – Pilot

STS-51 L (January 28, 1986)

Francis R. Scobee – Commander, Michael J. Smith – Pilot, Judith A. Resnik – Mission Specialist 1, Ellison Onizuka – Mission Specialist 2, Ronald E. McNair – Mission Specialist 3, Gregory B. Jarvis – Payload Specialist 1, Sharon Christa McAuliffe – Payload Specialist 2

STS-107 (February 1, 2003)

Rick D. Husband – Commander, William C. McCool – Pilot, Michael P. Anderson – Payload Commander, David M. Brown – Mission Specialist 1, Kalpana Chawla – Mission Specialist 2, Laurel Clark – Mission Specialist 3, Ilan Ramon – Payload Specialist 1

Video credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“Communicating from Earth to any spacecraft is a complex challenge, largely due to the extreme distances involved. When data are transmitted and received across thousands and even millions of miles, the delay and potential for disruption or data loss is significant. Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) is NASA’s solution to reliable internetworking for space missions.

The moon is about 250 thousand miles away and Mars is 140 million miles away on average. To communicate across these vast distances, NASA manages three communication networks consisting of distributed ground stations and space relay satellites for data transmission and reception that support both NASA and non-NASA missions. These are the Deep Space Network (DSN), the Near Earth Network (NEN), and the Space Network (SN).

For previous missions from low-Earth orbit to deep space, NASA has used point-to-point (direct) or single relay links to communicate with spacecraft; this operates much like the phone system by directly connecting two communication nodes. While this approach has been successful for previous missions, future exploration concepts will introduce much more complex communication needs, with data transfer between many nodes. These transmissions will need to operate like the Internet here on Earth – involving multiple hops via relay spacecraft and other intermediate nodes, creating the foundation for a Solar System Internet (SSI).

Like the terrestrial Internet, the SSI will offer users a well-defined, standardized platform upon which to build a wide variety of applications by accessing end-to-end network services. The SSI will utilize the Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol suite, which can be used in any scenario, including those with longer light times or frequent link disruptions, where conventional Internet Protocols (IP) fail.”

Music provided by Killer Tracks: “Strange Reality”

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Clare Skelly

ESA dixit:

“An expedition of astronauts, planetary scientists and engineers test equipment for space exploration in Spain’s Canary Island of Lanzarote, also known as the island of a thousand volcanoes. Pangaea-X is a test campaign that brings together geology, high-tech survey equipment and space exploration. For five days in November 2017, the course mobilizes 50 people, four space agencies and 18 organisations in five different locations.The crew is testing instrumentation, navigation, remote sensing, 3D imaging and geoscience equipment. The volcanic features of Lanzarote make it a unique setting with many geological similarities to the Moon and Mars.”

Video credit: ESA

NASA dixit:

“Light from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space. The supernova, called SN 2014J, occurred at the upper right of M82, and is marked by an “X.” The supernova was discovered on January 21, 2014.

The inset images at top reveal an expanding shell of light from the stellar explosion sweeping through interstellar space, called a “light echo.” The images were taken 10 months to nearly two years after the violent event (November 6, 2014 to October 12, 2016). The light is bouncing off a giant dust cloud that extends 300 to 1,600 light-years from the supernova and is being reflected toward Earth.

SN 2014J is classified as a Type Ia supernova and is the closest such blast in at least four decades. A Type Ia supernova occurs in a binary star system consisting of a burned-out white dwarf and a companion star. The white dwarf explodes after the companion dumps too much material onto it. The image of M82 reveals a bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds, and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions.

Close encounters with its larger neighbor, the spiral galaxy M81, is compressing gas in M82 and stoking the birth of multiple star clusters. Some of these stars live for only a short time and die in cataclysmic supernova blasts, as shown by SN 2014J.

Located 11.4 million light-years away, M82 appears high in the northern spring sky in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is also called the “Cigar Galaxy” because of the elliptical shape produced by the oblique tilt of its starry disk relative to our line of sight.”

Music credit: “Little Effort” by Christopher Franke [BMI]; Killer Tracks [BMI]; Killer Tracks Production Music

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Katrina Jackson