a faint plasma "hum" scientists compared to gentle rain
May 19, 2021 2:54 PM Subscribe
Another week in humanity's exploration of the solar system. Starting from the sun: the NASA and ESA Solar Orbiter hurtled around the far side of the star from the Earth and tracked a coronal mass ejection.
On and near Earth: SpaceX landed one rocket for the eighth time. The CSNA's Tianzhou 2 (天舟二号) is getting ready to launch a second space station component into orbit not today but tomorrow; the rocket bearing the station's first piece crashed down near the Maldives. The ESA agreed to build an orbital space junk removal mission starting in 2025. And NOAA is testing a submarine in terrestrial oceans to see how it might fare in Jovian seas.
From the Earth-Sun Lagrange L1 point Chang'e 5 (嫦娥五号) sent home some new images.
(On the more private space side, Roscosmos is selling one of its Soyuz modules. Blue Origin reported that the highest bid for a private seat on its upcoming space flight stands at $2.4 million. A Rocketlab satellite launch failed in New Zealand.)
On Mars, the CSNA Zhurong (祝融) lander and rover successfully landed and sent back a photo.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, and Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) pushed away from Bennu and started a long trip back to Earth, bearing asteroid samples.
Much farther away, Voyager 1 detected an interstellar hum.
On and near Earth: SpaceX landed one rocket for the eighth time. The CSNA's Tianzhou 2 (天舟二号) is getting ready to launch a second space station component into orbit not today but tomorrow; the rocket bearing the station's first piece crashed down near the Maldives. The ESA agreed to build an orbital space junk removal mission starting in 2025. And NOAA is testing a submarine in terrestrial oceans to see how it might fare in Jovian seas.
From the Earth-Sun Lagrange L1 point Chang'e 5 (嫦娥五号) sent home some new images.
(On the more private space side, Roscosmos is selling one of its Soyuz modules. Blue Origin reported that the highest bid for a private seat on its upcoming space flight stands at $2.4 million. A Rocketlab satellite launch failed in New Zealand.)
On Mars, the CSNA Zhurong (祝融) lander and rover successfully landed and sent back a photo.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, and Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) pushed away from Bennu and started a long trip back to Earth, bearing asteroid samples.
Much farther away, Voyager 1 detected an interstellar hum.
A few weeks ago, SpaceX landed one of their boosters for the 10th time. They may well end up flying more missions this year than all the other launch providers combined. Thankfully, Elon Musk put Gwynne Shotwell in charge of making his crazy space ideas happen. If only he had had the foresight to hire himself a similarly talented Chief Twitter Officer to run his Twitter account.
posted by wierdo at 7:45 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by wierdo at 7:45 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
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In the beginning was the S O U N D...
posted by Silvery Fish at 6:37 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]