Alan Boyle, Author at Universe Today

October 14, 2024October 14, 2024 by Alan Boyle

Europa Clipper Begins Odyssey to Assess Jovian Moon’s Habitability

Europa Clipper liftoff on Falcon Heavy rocket — SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket sends NASA's Europa Clipper into space from its Florida launch pad. (NASA Photo / Kim Shiflett)

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft today began its six-year cruise to the Jupiter system, with the goal of determining whether one of the giant planet’s moons has the right stuff in the right setting for life.

The van-sized probe was sent into space from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 12:06 p.m. ET (16:06 UTC). A little more than an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from its launch vehicle to begin a roundabout journey of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) from Earth orbit to Europa.

For decades, scientists have been collecting evidence that Europa harbors a hidden ocean of salty water beneath its icy shell. Or are they hidden lakes? Europa Clipper is built to characterize the moon’s surface, and what’s beneath that surface, to an unprecedented degree.

October 13, 2024October 13, 2024 by Alan Boyle

SpaceX’s Mechazilla Catches a Starship Booster on First Try

Starship Super Heavy catch in Mechazilla cradle — SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy booster settles back into the arms of its launch-pad cradle in Texas. (Credit: SpaceX)

For the first time ever, SpaceX has followed through on a Starship test launch by bringing back the Super Heavy booster for an on-target catch in the arms of its “Mechazilla” launch-tower cradle in Texas.

“This is a day for the engineering history books,” SpaceX launch commentator Kate Tice said.

Today’s successful catch marks a giant step toward using — and reusing — Starship for missions ranging from satellite deployments to NASA’s moon missions to migrations to Mars.

October 7, 2024October 7, 2024 by Alan Boyle

Hera Probe Heads Off to See Aftermath of DART’s Asteroid Impact

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off with Hera probe — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sends the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft into space from its Florida launch pad. (Credit: SpaceX)

The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft is on its way to do follow-up observations of Dimorphos, two years after an earlier probe knocked the mini-asteroid into a different orbital path around a bigger space rock.

Scientists say the close-up observations that Hera is due to make millions of miles from Earth, starting in 2026, will help them defend our planet from future threats posed by killer asteroids.

July 27, 2024July 27, 2024 by Alan Boyle

SpaceX Resumes Falcon 9 Rocket Launches After FAA Go-Ahead

SpaceX Falcon 9 liftoff — SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Credit: SpaceX via X)

SpaceX is flying again after the Federal Aviation Administration ruled that the company can resume Falcon 9 rocket launches while the investigation into a failed July 11 mission continues.

The FAA’s go-ahead came on July 25 after SpaceX reported that the failure was caused by a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the upper stage’s liquid-oxygen system. That resulted in an oxygen leak that degraded the performance of the upper-stage engine. As a near-term fix, SpaceX is removing the sense line and the sensors for upcoming Falcon 9 launches.

It didn’t take long for SpaceX to get back to its flight schedule. The company launched a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:45 a.m. ET (05:45 GMT) today. Like the July 11 mission, this one sent a batch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit.

The launch appeared to proceed without incident. After stage separation, the first-stage booster descended to a landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, while the second stage proceeded to orbit and deployed 23 satellites for the Starlink high-speed internet network.

July 17, 2024July 17, 2024 by Alan Boyle

NASA Stops Work on VIPER Moon Rover, Citing Cost and Schedule Issues

NASA VIPER rover in clean room — NASA’s VIPER rover sits assembled inside the clean room at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. (Credit: NASA)

NASA says it intends to discontinue development of its VIPER moon rover, due to cost increases and schedule delays — but the agency is also pointing to other opportunities for robotic exploration of the lunar south polar region.

July 12, 2024July 12, 2024 by Alan Boyle

‘Fly Me to the Moon’ Points to the Past and Future of Moonshot Marketing

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in "Fly Me to the Moon" movie poster — Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum star in "Fly Me to the Moon." (Apple Original Films / Columbia Pictures)

In a new movie titled “Fly Me to the Moon,” a marketing consultant played by Scarlett Johansson uses Tang breakfast drink, Crest toothpaste and Omega watches to give a publicity boost to NASA’s Apollo moon program.

The marketing consultant may be totally fictional. And don’t get me started on the fake moon landing that’s part of the screwball comedy’s plot. But the fact that the makers of Tang, Crest and Omega allied themselves with NASA’s brand in the 1960s is totally real.

More than 50 years later, those companies are still benefiting from the NASA connection, says Richard Jurek, a marketing and public relations executive in the Chicago area who’s one of the authors of “Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program.”

In the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, Jurek says Tang sold poorly when it was introduced in the late 1950s. “But once it was announced that it was being used in the space program and marketed that way, it became a huge bestseller for them, and in fact, still sells more overseas — and is a multibillion-dollar brand today,” he says.

July 12, 2024July 28, 2024 by Alan Boyle

SpaceX’s Rocket Failure Could Cause Delays for Lots of Launches

SpaceX rocket-cam showing orbital flight — A view from the Falcon 9 upper stage's rocket-cam shows ice forming around the engine hardware. (Credit: SpaceX via YouTube)

After going eight years and more than 300 launches without a failure, SpaceX had a Falcon 9 rocket launch go awry, resulting in the expected loss of 20 Starlink satellites.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it would oversee an investigation into the anomaly, raising the prospect that dozens of launches could be delayed until the problem is identified and rectified. Update for July 27: SpaceX was able to resume Falcon 9 launches after the FAA ruled that no public safety issues were involved in the anomaly.

As many as 40 Falcon 9 launches are on tap between now and the end of the year — potentially including missions that would carry astronauts to the International Space Station and send the privately funded Polaris Dawn crew into orbit for the world’s first commercial spacewalk.

July 9, 2024July 9, 2024 by Alan Boyle

Ariane 6 Rocket’s Debut Puts Europe Back in the Launch Game

Ariane 6 liftoff — The European Space Agency's Ariane 6 rocket rises for the first time from its launch pad in French Guiana. Credit: ESA via YouTube

Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket rose today for the first time from its South American spaceport, ending a yearlong launch gap caused by the Ariane 5’s retirement.

The heavy-lift launch vehicle’s demonstration flight began with liftoff at 4 p.m. local time (19:00 GMT) from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, and continued with satellite deployments in orbit.

“A completely new rocket is not launched often, and success is far from guaranteed,” Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency’s director general, said in a statement. “I am privileged to have witnessed this historic moment when Europe’s new generation of the Ariane family lifted off – successfully – effectively reinstating European access to space.”

July 5, 2024July 5, 2024 by Alan Boyle

The First Space War Is Here: Find Out How the Next One May Play Out

Illustration: Satellites in orbit — An artist's conception shows satellites that are part of the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program. (Space Force Illustration)

Wars in space are no longer just science fiction. In fact, Space War I has been raging for more than two years, with no quick end in sight. This isn’t the kind of conflict that involves X-wing fighters or Space Marines. Instead, it’s a battle over how satellites are being used to collect imagery, identify military targets and facilitate communications in the war between Ukraine and Russia.

“As I looked at Ukraine in the early months, it was obvious to me: This is the first space war,” says David Ignatius, a journalist who lives a double life as a foreign-affairs columnist for The Washington Post and a spy-thriller novelist.

In the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, Ignatius delves into the potential national-security threats posed by satellite-based warfare — and how he wove those threats into the plot threads of a new novel titled “Phantom Orbit.” The tale lays out a scenario in which Space War I tips toward a potentially catastrophic Space War II.

June 28, 2024June 28, 2024 by Alan Boyle

Happy Asteroid Day! Schweickart Prize Spotlights Planetary Defense

Vapor trail from 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor — This vapor trail was left behind by an asteroid that zoomed over the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013. (Credit: Alex Alishevskikh via NASA)

Every year on June 30, Asteroid Day marks the anniversary of a meteor airburst in 1908 that leveled hundreds of square miles of Siberian forest land. But a more recent meteor blast — and a new plan for getting advance warning of the next one — is receiving some added attention for this year’s Asteroid Day.

The first-ever Schweickart Prize, named in honor of Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, is going to a researcher who has proposed a system for spotting potentially threatening asteroids coming at us from a difficult-to-monitor zone between Earth and the sun. It was just such an asteroid that blew up over the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013, spraying debris that injured about 1,500 people and caused an estimated $33 million in property damage.

The proposal from astronomy Ph.D. student Joseph DeMartini calls for setting up a consortium of ground-based observatories, anchored by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, to focus on the twilight sky just after sunset and just before sunrise. Those are the times of day when astronomers have the best chance of finding sunward near-Earth objects (NEOs) that spend much of their time within Earth’s orbit.

“It’s a very interesting proposal that we hope gets picked up,” Rusty Schweickart said.