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(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute) NASA's Juno spacecraft made a close flyby of Jupiter's intriguing moon Europa in 2022, revealing potential hints of present day surface activity. The spacecraft's Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), which is a star camera designed to assist Juno's onboard attitude determination, was used to image Europa's surface with high resolution while being lit up by Jupiter-shine, or sunlight scattered off Jupiter. The SRU image from the flyby is explored in an article published in the journal JGR Planets on Dec. 22, 2023. The image shows an oddly-shaped area of the icy surface, measuring 23 miles by 42...

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launched a secretive military spaceplane to orbit last night after weeks of delays, though scant details about the mission have been released to the public. The Falcon Heavy lifted off on the clandestine mission at 8:07 PM Eastern from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The U.S. Space Force’s X-37B space plane, a reusable vehicle that acts as a classified testbed for experiments in space, was the sole payload on the massive rocket. As with the other six uncrewed X-37B missions, little is known about this mission. The target orbit, mission duration and many of the payloads are...

SpaceX Lands All 3 Falcon Heavy Boosters for the First Time

The next opportunity will come on Wednesday (Dec. 13). We'll have to wait until Wednesday (Dec. 13) to see SpaceX's powerful Falcon Heavy rocket take to the skies again. The brawny Falcon Heavy had been scheduled to launch the U.S. Space Force's robotic X-37B space plane from Florida on Monday night (Dec. 11), a liftoff known as USSF-52. But about 30 minutes before the planned 8:24 p.m. EST (0124 GMT) liftoff time, SpaceX announced a scrub. "Standing down from tonight's Falcon Heavy launch due to a ground side issue; vehicle and payload remain healthy. Team is resetting for the next...

SpaceX is targeting Thursday, December 28 at 8:07 p.m. ET for Falcon Heavy’s launch of the USSF-52 mission to orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A backup launch opportunity is available at 8:06 p.m. ET on Friday, December 29. A live webcast of this mission will begin on X @SpaceX about fifteen minutes prior to liftoff. This will be the fifth launch and landing of these Falcon Heavy side boosters, which previously supported USSF-44, USSF-67, Hughes JUPTER 3, and NASA’s Psyche mission. Following booster separation, Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters will land on...

SpaceX's fifth Falcon Heavy of the year is set to liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center carrying the US Space Force X-37B spaceplane. Falcon Heavy - USSF-52 (OTV-7) Window Opens: December 28th at 8:07PM EST (01:07 UTC on the 29th) Window Closes: December 28th at 8:17PM EST (01:17 UTC on the 29th) Current T0: December 28th at 8:07PM EST (01:00 UTC on the 29th)

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches the Psyche mission. The orbiter mission will explore the origin of planetary cores by studying the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche. 16 Psyche is the heaviest known M-type asteroid. The mass of the payload is 2,600 kg. Instantaneous Launch Window: October 13th at 10:19AM EDT (14:19 UTC)

Psyche Spacecraft at the Asteroid Psyche (Illustration) This illustration depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU Now that fueling and testing are complete, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is ready to meet its ride – a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The launch is now targeting 10:34 a.m. EDT on Thursday, October 5 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after optimizing the trajectory for the mission to study a metal-rich asteroid. Craft Integration Technicians connected Psyche to the payload attach fitting at Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida. This hardware allows Psyche to connect to the top of...

Falcon Heavy’s side boosters have landed – marking the 150th and 151st recovery of orbital class rockets VIDEO AT LINK........... Update — Successful landing.

The Falcon Heavy is now scheduled to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday to deliver two spacecraft payloads into geosynchronous orbit. According to launch details posted on the Kennedy Space Center’s website, the Falcon Heavy rocket aims to deploy the TETRA 1 microsatellite into orbit, along with the USSF-44 mission for the U.S. Space Force. Following ignition, the Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters will land on landing zone 1 and landing zone 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station while the core stage will be expended. The spaceflight was initially rumored to take place on Monday, Oct. 31...

The Psyche spacecraft was supposed to launch toward its namesake, a bizarre metallic space rock in the main asteroid belt, between August and October of this year. But issues with Psyche's flight software made it impossible to hit that window... Psyche will still launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as previously planned. 2022 liftoff would have delivered Psyche to its asteroid target in early 2026. But a 2023 launch requires a different trajectory, pushing the arrival back to August 2029... NASA's Janus smallsat mission, which is designed to study two separate binary...

SPACEX WILL LAUNCH THE PART OF THE STATION WHERE THE ASTRONAUTS WILL ACTUALLY LIVE. NASA Lunar Gateway NASA has chosen SpaceX to launch the first parts of the Lunar Gateway, a crewed outpost about a tenth the size of the International Space Station. The plan is for it to orbit the Moon — where it will be a stepping stone for future Artemis missions to the lunar surface. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy, a reusable heavy-lift rocket that has only launched three times since 2018, will carry NASA’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) from launch...

NASA's SpaceX astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi arrived at KSC historic launchpad 39-A, and boarded the launch vehicle. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission will be the first crew rotational flight of a U.S. commercial spacecraft with astronauts to the International Space Station. The launch may be viewed via link above, or streaming via SpaceX Launches, and via Roku NASA channel.

Elon Musk's company has launched two people into space to date: NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken, who rode to the International Space Station May 30 aboard a Crew Dragon capsule mounted on a Falcon 9 rocket. That test flight, termed DEMO-2, marked the first-ever commercial crewed launch, and the first launch from American soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. But it was a test flight, with just two astronauts aboard, lasting just 64 days with most of that time in zero-gravity spent on the International Space Station (ISS). On Nov. 14, if all...

From communists on Mars to 'The Expanse' in real life, the questions about the future of Musk's Mars are huge. Here's what you need to know. Martian 1776 has arrived, according to SpaceX. In a set of recently released documents, the company announced it has no intention of following laws from any government on Earth once it reaches Mars.“For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities,” the document reads, which was included...

Could rural Montana be the next Silicon Valley? Check internet speed off your list of reasons why not.Even though Elon Musk’s SpaceX says its expanded “Better Than Nothing” test is still a beta version of Starlink’s eventual capabilities, at least one early Starlink internet service customer says he is getting better than expected speed. Starlink says it should give you between “50 and 150 MB/s with 20-40 milliseconds of latency.” Starlink customer “FourthEchelon19” is getting 161 megabits/second download and 23 megabits/second upload speed.In rural Montana.That’s good enough to stream 4K YouTube videos with zero buffering. And it’s making people with hard-wired “high-speed”...

This is the first practical field deployment that I've heard about. Washington Emergency Management who is responding to the wildfires out west has deployed 7 Starlink Terminals remotely to provide internet and communication capabilities to help their response to the fires. The reviews so far a fantastic.....

As someone who has posted multiple times about Starlink, I'm not sure how I feel about this, especially if it alters the purpose of Starlink. OTOH, if Starlink makes for a better more secure GPS system for our military then I would be more inclined to go for it.... Evidently The US Army has been in discussion with Starlink about using their constellation of satellites for GPS purposes that would make it much harder to jam..

About 26 minutes away, I think.

Inmarsat is a satellite communication system that is likely to become obsolete once Elon Musk’s Starlink system is up and running. The differences go well beyond age and branding. Let’s learn more about the differences between the Starlink and Inmarsat antennas.