Expedition Space: Space Launch, Events, News

In this Hubble Space Telescope image the bright, spiky stars lie in the foreground toward the heroic northern constellation Perseus and well within our own Milky Way galaxy. In sharp focus beyond is UGC 2885, a giant spiral galaxy about 232 million light-years distant. Some 800,000 light-years across compared to the Milky Way's diameter of 100,000 light-years or so, it has around 1 trillion stars. That's about 10 times as many stars as the Milky Way. Part of an investigation to understand how galaxies can grow to such enormous sizes, UGC 2885 was also part of An Interesting Voyage and astronomer Vera Rubin's pioneering study of the rotation of spiral galaxies. Her work was the first to convincingly demonstrate the dominating presence of dark matter in our universe. via NASA https://ift.tt/UWQNYVv

On the upper right, dressed in blue, is the Pleiades. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades is one of the brightest and most easily visible open clusters on the sky. The Pleiades contains over 3,000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light years across. Surrounding the stars is a spectacular blue reflection nebula made of fine dust. A common legend is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named. On the lower left, shining in red, is the California Nebula. Named for its shape, the California Nebula is much dimmer and hence harder to see than the Pleiades. Also known as NGC 1499, this mass of red glowing hydrogen gas is about 1,500 light years away. Although about 25 full moons could fit between them, the featured wide angle, deep field image composite has captured them both. A careful inspection of the deep image will also reveal the star forming region IC 348 and the molecular cloud LBN 777 (the Baby Eagle Nebula). via NASA https://i...

by Sandra Erwin WASHINGTON — Numerica, a company that operates a network of ground-based telescopes to track objects in deep space, is deploying new sensors that can observe orbiting satellites in broad daylight. The telescopes were funded with $3 million the company won in 2019 at a pitch day event hosted by the U.S. Air Force to attract space industry firms to the military market. A total of six daytime telescopes that can monitor satellites at altitudes of more than 22,000 miles are being installed in Colorado and outside the United States in Australia and Spain, Todd Brost, director of special projects at Numerica, told SpaceNews. The Air Force decided to invest in the technology Numerica developed to make daytime telescopes autonomous and cheaper to operate.   The funding is to help commercialize and lower the cost of tracking satellites without interference from the sunlight, Brost said.   Daytime imaging today is performed by a handful of very large and expens...

by Jeff Foust WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin has signed a contract with small launch vehicle developer ABL Space Systems for as many as 58 launches over the next decade, a deal potentially worth several hundred million dollars. The contract, announced April 5, covers up to 26 launches of ABL’s RS1 rocket through 2025, and an additional 32 launches from 2026 through 2029. Those launches would take place from any of several potential locations, including Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Shetland Space Centre under development in the United Kingdom. The companies declined to disclose the total value of the contract. ABL lists a price of $12 million for the RS1, which would put the total value of the contract at $696 million if Lockheed orders all 58 launches at that price, although such bulk purchases usually offer some level of discount. Lockheed, which made a “strategic investment” in ABL in 2019 , selected the company’s RS1 in February for the “...

by Jeff Foust WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft moved from one docking port to another on the International Space Station April 5, marking the start of a busy month spacecraft arrivals and departures on the station. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Resilience undocked from the forward port on the station’s Harmony module at 6:30 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft, with four astronauts on board, moved out 60 meters from the station, then shifted into position to dock with the module’s zenith port. The Crew Dragon docked with that new port at 7:08 a.m. Eastern. The port-relocation maneuver, the first done by a commercial crew vehicle at the station, is part of a complex choreography of vehicle activity at the station. This maneuver will allow the next Crew Dragon spacecraft to dock to the forward port when it arrives at the station later this month on the Crew-2 mission. This, in turn, will free up the zenith port after Resilience returns to Earth in late April for the next cargo Dr...

Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 7,000 years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula. At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remaining visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant, also known as the Cygnus Loop, has faded and is now visible only through a small telescope directed toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus). The remaining Veil Nebula is physically huge, however, and even though it lies about 1,400 light-years distant, it covers over five times the size of the full Moon. The featured picture is a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of six images together covering a span of only about two light years, a small part of the expansive supernova remnant. In images of the complete Veil Nebula, even studious readers might not be able to identify the featured filaments. via NASA https://ift.tt/39Jot7n

by Jeff Foust WASHINGTON — The Russian space agency Roscosmos anticipates additional negotiations with China at a conference in June, building upon an agreement on lunar exploration announced in February. The February agreement, in the form of a memorandum of understanding, announced the intent of China and Russia to develop an “International Lunar Research Station,” likely at the south pole of the moon. Neither country provided additional details about the facility or how it might be developed. The details of that agreement are still being worked out, a Roscosmos official said April 2. “We have already signed an agreement with China, focusing on exploring the moon using an automatic station. That agreement has been signed, and we are just ironing out certain details at the moment,” said Sergey Krikalev, executive director for human spaceflight at Roscosmos, during a press conference about the upcoming Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) in St. Petersburg, Russia. Those d...