“Hurricane Nicole is currently a strong tropical cyclone moving away from the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is the first major hurricane to directly impact or make landfall on the island since Hurricane Fabian in 2003. The fourteenth named storm, sixth hurricane and third major hurricane of the active 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, Nicole formed in the central Atlantic on October 4. The small, slow-moving storm defied forecasts by steadily organizing in spite of strong wind shear, and it rapidly intensified to a Category 2 hurricane on October 7. The wind shear finally took its toll by October 8, reducing Nicole to a weak tropical storm, but more favorable conditions allowed the cyclone to reintensify into a hurricane a couple days later. The storm’s approach to Bermuda forced schools, businesses, and government offices to close, while flight, bus, and ferry services were interrupted. On October 13, the eye of Category 3 Hurricane Nicole passed over Bermuda, producing damaging winds.”
“Rosetta was a space probe built by the European Space Agency launched on 2 March 2004. Along with Philae, its lander module, Rosetta performed a detailed study of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P). During its journey to the comet, the spacecraft flew by Mars and the asteroids 21 Lutetia and 2867 Å teins.
On 6 August 2014, the spacecraft reached the comet and performed a series of manoeuvres to be captured in its orbit. On 12 November, the lander module performed the first successful landing on a comet, though its battery power ran out two days later. Communications with Philae were briefly restored in June and July 2015, but due to diminishing solar power, Rosetta’s communications module with the lander was turned off on 27 July 2016. On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission by landing on the comet in its Ma’at region.
The probe is named after the Rosetta Stone, a stele of Egyptian origin featuring a decree in three scripts. The lander is named after the Philae obelisk, which bears a bilingual Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription. A comparison of its hieroglyphs with those on the Rosetta Stone catalysed the deciphering of the Egyptian writing system. Similarly, it is hoped that these spacecraft will result in better understanding of comets and the early Solar System. In a more direct analogy to its namesake, the Rosetta spacecraft also carries a micro-etched nickel alloy Rosetta disc donated by the Long Now Foundation inscribed with 13,000 pages of text in 1,200 languages.”
“The Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), formerly known as the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), is SpaceX’s privately funded development project to design and build a spaceflight system of reusable rocket engines, launch vehicles and spacecraft to transport humans to Mars and return to Earth. SpaceX began development of the large Raptor rocket engine for the Mars Colonial Transporter before 2014. As of June 2016, publicly-announced company conceptual plans included the first Mars-bound cargo flight of ITS launching no earlier than 2022, followed by the first ITS Mars flight with passengers one synodic period later in 2024, following two preparatory research launches of Mars probes in 2018 and 2020 on Dragon/Falcon Heavy equipment. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled details of the space mission architecture at the 67th International Astronautical Congress on 27 September 2016. The booster will have a diameter of 12 m, the spaceship diameter will be 17 m and stack height of the entire vehicle will be 122 m. The selected fuel type is deep-cryo methalox for 42 Raptor engines on the booster and 9 on the spacecraft.
As early as 2007, Elon Musk stated a personal goal of eventually enabling human exploration and settlement of Mars. Bits of additional information about the mission architecture were released in 2011–2015, including a 2014 statement that initial colonists would arrive at Mars no earlier than the middle of the 2020s. Company plans as of mid-2016 continue to call for the arrival of the first humans on Mars no earlier than 2025.
Musk stated in a 2011 interview that he hoped to send humans to Mars’ surface within 10–20 years, and in late 2012 he stated that he envisioned a Mars colony of tens of thousands with the first colonists arriving no earlier than the middle of the 2020s. In October 2012, Musk articulated a high-level plan to build a second reusable rocket system with capabilities substantially beyond the Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy launch vehicles on which SpaceX had by then spent several billion US dollars. This new vehicle was to be “an evolution of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster… much bigger [than Falcon 9].” But Musk indicated that SpaceX would not be speaking publicly about it until 2013. In June 2013, Musk stated that he intended to hold off any potential IPO of SpaceX shares on the stock market until after the “Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly.”
In February 2014, Musk stated that Mars Colonial Transporter will be “100 times the size of an SUV”, and capable of taking 100 tons of cargo to Mars. Also, SpaceX engine development head Tom Mueller said SpaceX would use nine Raptor engines on a single rocket, similar to the use of nine Merlin engines on each Falcon 9 booster core. He said “It’s going to put over 100 tons of cargo on Mars.” In early 2014, it appeared that the large rocket core that would be used for the booster to be used with MCT would be at least 10 meters (33 ft) in diameter, nearly three times the diameter and over seven times the cross-sectional area of the Falcon 9 booster cores. In August 2014, media sources speculated that the initial flight test of the Raptor-driven super-heavy launch vehicle could occur as early as 2020, in order to fully test the engines under orbital spaceflight conditions; however, any colonization effort was reported to continue to be “deep into the future”.
In January 2015, Musk said that he hoped to release details of the “completely new architecture” for the Mars transport system in late 2015 but those plans changed and, by December 2015, the plan to publicly release additional specifics had moved to 2016. In January 2016, Musk indicated that he hoped to describe the architecture for the Mars missions with the next generation SpaceX rocket and spacecraft later in 2016, at the 67th International Astronautical Congress conference, in September 2016. Musk stated in June 2016 that the first unmanned MCT Mars flight was planned for departure in 2022, to be followed by the first manned MCT Mars flight departing in 2024. By September 2016, Musk noted that the MCT name would not continue, as the system would be able to “go well beyond Mars”, and that a new name would be needed: Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), with the first spacecraft named “Heart of Gold” in reference to the Infinite Improbability Drive.”
“On Sept. 8, NASA launched the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security – Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission to sample an asteroid. The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 2018, survey the asteroid’s surface, retrieve at least 60 grams (2.1 ounces) of surface material, and return the sample to Earth in 2023 for study. Analysis of the sample will reveal the earliest stages of the solar system’s evolution and the history of Bennu over the past 4.5 billion years.”
“On Sept. 6, after bidding farewell to the crew remaining aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Soyuz Commander Alexey Ovchinin and Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos undocked from the orbital outpost to begin their return trip to Earth. They spent 172 days aboard the ISS, conducting research and operational work in support of the station.”
“The SpaceX CRS-9 Dragon cargo craft departed the International Space Station Aug. 26 after five weeks at the complex. Dragon delivered critical science experiments and the first International Docking Adapter to which U.S. commercial spacecraft will link up to in the future. Using the Canadarm2 robotic arm, Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins released the Dragon and monitored the resupply spacecraft as it backed away to a safe distance from the station for its deorbit engine firing that would enable the ship to enter the Earth’s atmosphere for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California. Dragon returned about one and a half tons of science experiments and other cargo that will be collected once it reaches port in Long Beach, California. Dragon launched July 18 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and arrived at the station July 20.”
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