SPACE NEWZ
Iran launches three satellites into orbit, further heightening tensions with West
Iran on Sunday said it simultaneously launched three satellites into orbit, nearly a week after the launch of a research satellite by the Revolutionary Guards drew Western criticism.
Issued on: 28/01/2024
Iran on Sunday said it simultaneously launched three satellites into orbit, nearly a week after the launch of a research satellite by the Revolutionary Guards drew Western criticism.
Issued on: 28/01/2024
This photo released by the Iranian Defense Ministry on January 28, 2024 claims to show a satellite carrier being launched at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran's rural Semnan province.
AP
By:NEWS WIRES
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"Three Iranian satellites have been successfully launched into orbit for the first time," state TV reported.
The satellites were carried by the two-stage Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier and were launched into a minimum orbit of 450 kilometres (280 miles), it added.
The Mahda satellite, which weighs around 32 kilogrammes and was developed by Iran's Space Agency, is designed to test advanced satellite subsystems, the official IRNA news agency said.
The other two, Kayhan 2 and Hatef, weigh under 10 kilogrammes each and are aimed to test space-based positioning technology and narrowband communication, IRNA added.
Last week, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent the research satellite Soraya into space.
Britain, France, and Germany condemned that launch in a statement rejected by Iran as "interventionist".
Western governments including the United States have repeatedly warned Iran against such launches, saying the same technology can be used for ballistic missiles, including ones designed to deliver a nuclear warhead.
Iran has countered that it is not seeking nuclear weapons and that its satellite and rocket launches are for civil or defence purposes only.
The Islamic republic has struggled with several satellite launch failures in the past.
The successful launch of its first military satellite into orbit, Nour-1, in April 2020 drew a sharp rebuke from the United States.
Tehran has been under crippling US sanctions since Washington's 2018 withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal which granted Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear activities designed to prevent it from developing an atomic warhead.
Iran has always denied any ambition to develop nuclear weapons capability, insisting that its activities are entirely peaceful.
(AFP)
By:NEWS WIRES
ADVERTISING
"Three Iranian satellites have been successfully launched into orbit for the first time," state TV reported.
The satellites were carried by the two-stage Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier and were launched into a minimum orbit of 450 kilometres (280 miles), it added.
The Mahda satellite, which weighs around 32 kilogrammes and was developed by Iran's Space Agency, is designed to test advanced satellite subsystems, the official IRNA news agency said.
The other two, Kayhan 2 and Hatef, weigh under 10 kilogrammes each and are aimed to test space-based positioning technology and narrowband communication, IRNA added.
Last week, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent the research satellite Soraya into space.
Britain, France, and Germany condemned that launch in a statement rejected by Iran as "interventionist".
Western governments including the United States have repeatedly warned Iran against such launches, saying the same technology can be used for ballistic missiles, including ones designed to deliver a nuclear warhead.
Iran has countered that it is not seeking nuclear weapons and that its satellite and rocket launches are for civil or defence purposes only.
The Islamic republic has struggled with several satellite launch failures in the past.
The successful launch of its first military satellite into orbit, Nour-1, in April 2020 drew a sharp rebuke from the United States.
Tehran has been under crippling US sanctions since Washington's 2018 withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal which granted Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear activities designed to prevent it from developing an atomic warhead.
Iran has always denied any ambition to develop nuclear weapons capability, insisting that its activities are entirely peaceful.
(AFP)
Did Lockheed Martin Just Delay America's Return to the Moon?
Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Sun, January 28, 2024
Five years ago, then-President Donald Trump promised to put Americans back on the moon by 2024. Five years later, American astronauts are still cooling their heels down here on Earth. Although Artemis I successfully took off and flew to the moon in 2022, it didn't land on the moon, and there were no astronauts on board.
Now it looks like we'll need to wait until 2026 (at the earliest) before we can land on the moon.
Image source: Getty Images.
When are we back on the moon, NASA?
So what's the hold up? First and foremost, it's a question of getting the several parts needed for a moon landing in place: a Lunar Gateway space station in orbit around the moon, an Orion space capsule with astronauts to dock with it, and a SpaceX-built Human Landing System (HLS) to carry those astronauts down to the moon and then back up to the Gateway.
Also needed before a moon landing can happen: Testing.
Several pieces of the whole apparatus need to be tested before the moon landing can happen. SpaceX must prove its Starship can get to orbit and then to the moon. HLS will need to prove it can land on the moon and launch itself back up to the Gateway. And an Artemis II mission will need to be flown -- with astronauts on board this time -- to the moon and back to Earth.
Simply put, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done for Project Artemis to work. Too much work to accomplish a moon landing this year, or even next year, at the rate things are progressing. Recognizing this, NASA finally gave in earlier this month and admitted "we must be realistic."
A 2024 moon landing isn't going to happen. Nor a landing in 2025. And so NASA is moving the goalposts out to 2026.
A new lunar calendar
As NASA associate administrator Jim Free described earlier this month, the new plan is to shift Artemis II (the crewed mission to circle the moon and land back on Earth) out one year, to 2025, and Artemis III (the crewed mission to land on the moon and then come back to Earth) to 2026. A fourth crewed mission, Artemis IV, will return to the moon for a second landing in 2028.
Free explained that, in addition to all the other issues noted above, NASA also needs to practice fuel transfers in orbit (to gas up Starship for its trip from Earth orbit to the moon). A NASA contractor also needs more time to develop next-generation space suits for the astronauts. Finally, and most worrisome, are issues with the Orion spaceship that Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) built to carry astronauts from Earth to the Lunar Gateway and then back from the Gateway to land on Earth.
The trouble with Orion
Returning to Earth after the Artemis I flight, Lockheed Martin's Orion space capsule lost part of its heat shield during reentry. NASA spent much of 2023 trying to discover "a root cause" to the heat shield's issues and hasn't figured out a fix just yet.
Additional issues were noted with batteries in the space capsule's abort system, as well as design flaws in circuitry controlling motor valves in the spacecraft. Curiously, Ars Technica reported this valve circuitry is the "pacing issue" determining when Orion is ready to fly for Artemis II. But anything related to heat shields raises echoes of the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when a damaged heat shield doomed the spacecraft upon reentry.
What it means to investors
Right now, that means that Lockheed Martin is primarily responsible for delaying Artemis II and by extension Artemis III, thus postponing America's return to the moon. But these may not be the only delays investors need to worry about when figuring when future spaceflights will launch and when the tens of billions of dollars of expected future revenues will roll in.
After Orion's problems are fixed, attention should shift to SpaceX, its Super Heavy booster rocket, and its Starship spacecraft. Can SpaceX get Starship into orbit without blowing up? Can it figure out the mechanics of orbital fuel storage and refueling? Can it launch enough times to get enough fuel in orbit to tank up not one but two separate HLS landers for their trips to the moon?
And can it do all of the above in time for a 2026 moon landing?
So far, SpaceX is saying it can do all of this, and NASA takes SpaceX at its word. If the company succeeds, it will win the honor of landing astronauts on the moon for the first time in a half century and increase its technological lead over the rest of the space industry. It will also open the floodgates for contracts to flow to a whole host of space companies involved in Project Artemis.
Despite the delays, it's only a matter of time.
NASA Curious Whether Astronauts Will See Strange Flashes of Light on the Moon
Victor Tangermann
Sat, January 27, 2024
Moon Flash
During NASA's Apollo 17 mission just over half a century ago, astronauts saw strange flashes of light while orbiting the Moon.
"Hey, I just saw a flash on the lunar surface!" astronaut Harrison Schmitt, the twelfth person to set foot on the Moon, told support crew member Gordon Fullerton.
"It was a bright little flash right out there near that crater," Schmitt added. "Then there is another one north of it. Fairly sharp one north of it is where there was just a pin prick of light."
While scientists have long speculated that the flashes could have been the result of meteors raining down on the Moon or cosmic rays hitting the crew's eyes, we have yet to capture direct evidence of them — something the scientific community is hoping will change during NASA's crewed Artemis 2 mission around the Moon.
Photo Opp
As Space.com reports, the space agency is working on coming up with photography assignments for the crew of four, which will be sent into a lunar orbit before making their long return inside an Orion spacecraft sometime next year (if everything goes according to plan.)
"We have been working with the Artemis 2 crew to identify imaging and observation targets/plans for them during their journey to and from the moon," Artemis 3 project scientist Noah Petro told Space.com.
According to the report, around five ping-pong ball-sized meteoroids impact the lunar surface every hour. Fortunately, the probability of one of these particles striking an astronaut are exceedingly slim.
While Apollo 17 astronauts didn't manage to capture these pricks of light, which last a fraction of a second, that could soon change. NASA Meteoroid Environments Office lead William Cooke told Space.com that "you would need a video camera to record them. The odds of catching a flash in a short exposure still image are vanishingly small."
"While we don't expect the crews to photograph any flashes," Petro told the publication, "their photos and descriptions of the surface and lunar environment will be an important addition to lunar science."
And perhaps astronauts during Artemis 3, NASA's official return to the lunar surface, will finally be able to catch these strange flashes on tape as well.
More on Artemis: Congress Terrified China Will Beat the United States to the Moon
Victor Tangermann
Sat, January 27, 2024
Moon Flash
During NASA's Apollo 17 mission just over half a century ago, astronauts saw strange flashes of light while orbiting the Moon.
"Hey, I just saw a flash on the lunar surface!" astronaut Harrison Schmitt, the twelfth person to set foot on the Moon, told support crew member Gordon Fullerton.
"It was a bright little flash right out there near that crater," Schmitt added. "Then there is another one north of it. Fairly sharp one north of it is where there was just a pin prick of light."
While scientists have long speculated that the flashes could have been the result of meteors raining down on the Moon or cosmic rays hitting the crew's eyes, we have yet to capture direct evidence of them — something the scientific community is hoping will change during NASA's crewed Artemis 2 mission around the Moon.
Photo Opp
As Space.com reports, the space agency is working on coming up with photography assignments for the crew of four, which will be sent into a lunar orbit before making their long return inside an Orion spacecraft sometime next year (if everything goes according to plan.)
"We have been working with the Artemis 2 crew to identify imaging and observation targets/plans for them during their journey to and from the moon," Artemis 3 project scientist Noah Petro told Space.com.
According to the report, around five ping-pong ball-sized meteoroids impact the lunar surface every hour. Fortunately, the probability of one of these particles striking an astronaut are exceedingly slim.
While Apollo 17 astronauts didn't manage to capture these pricks of light, which last a fraction of a second, that could soon change. NASA Meteoroid Environments Office lead William Cooke told Space.com that "you would need a video camera to record them. The odds of catching a flash in a short exposure still image are vanishingly small."
"While we don't expect the crews to photograph any flashes," Petro told the publication, "their photos and descriptions of the surface and lunar environment will be an important addition to lunar science."
And perhaps astronauts during Artemis 3, NASA's official return to the lunar surface, will finally be able to catch these strange flashes on tape as well.
More on Artemis: Congress Terrified China Will Beat the United States to the Moon
'Trainwreck' galaxy reflects the aftermath of a violent galactic collision (image)
Robert Lea
Sat, January 27, 2024
The twisted galactic disk of NGC 4753 as seen by the Gemini South Telescope.
Robert Lea
Sat, January 27, 2024
The twisted galactic disk of NGC 4753 as seen by the Gemini South Telescope.
A team of astronomers became a crew of cosmic crash scene investigators while studying wreckage left behind by two galaxies that smashed into one another over 1 billion years ago.
The scientists used the Gemini South Telescope to investigate the twisted galactic disk of the galaxy NGC 4753, located around 60 million light-years from Earth, seeing it in more detail than ever before. The team paid particular attention to a complex network of dust tracks that appear to twist around the heart, or galactic nucleus, of NGC 4753.
Galaxies come in four main shapes: Lenticular, elliptical, irregular and spiral, like the Milky Way. While NGC 4753 is classified as a lenticular galaxy, however, the merger with a smaller dwarf galaxy 1.3 billion years ago has left its disk of stars and dust with a twisted shape that fits it into the aptly named subclass of "peculiar" galaxies.
"Galaxies that gobble up another galaxy often look like train wrecks, and this is a train-wreck galaxy," Tom Steiman-Cameron, team leader and a senior research scientist at Indiana University, said in a statement.
Related: Astronomers accidentally discover 'dark' primordial galaxy with no visible stars
NGC 4753 was first discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel in 1784; it's located in the constellation of Virgo. The galaxy is situated in the NGC 4753 Group of galaxies which, in turn, is part of the Virgo II cloud of 100 galaxy clusters that sits on the southern edge of the Virgo supercluster of galaxies.
The twisted dust lanes of NGC 4753 have long been a source of fascination for astronomers. In 1992, a team of scientists, also led by Steiman-Cameron, determined that this mystifying feature is the result of a lenticular galaxy colliding with a gas-rich dwarf galaxy.
Such a collision would have injected the lenticular galaxy with a massive amount of gas, triggering bouts of intense star formation called "starbursts" and filling NGC 4753 with vast amounts of dust.
As the dwarf galaxy mixed into the larger lenticular galaxy with its stars spiraling toward its galactic center, the accumulated dust spread would've spread out into a disk-like structure.
A fascinating phenomenon called "differential precession," caused by the angle at which the two galaxies collided, would have then taken over to wind the dust into a more intriguing shape.
The easier way to picture precession is to think of a child's spinning top. Imagine what it would look like if you set it spinning, then viewed it aerially. As the top slows and loses momentum, the top of the top — for lack of a better word — would start to wobble, and its angle of orientation would changes. That's a simple precession analog.
The precession experienced by NGC 4753 is called "differential" because it varied across the galaxy according to its distance from the galactic nucleus. It would've been faster at the heart of the galaxy and slower at its edges. This galactic wobble, scientists say, had twisted up the dust into the twirling lanes we see today.
"For a long time, nobody knew what to make of this peculiar galaxy," Steiman-Cameron said. "But by starting with the idea of accreted material smeared out into a disk and then analyzing the three-dimensional geometry, the mystery was solved. It's now incredibly exciting to see this highly-detailed image by Gemini South 30 years later."
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Steiman-Cameron also points out that, though the trainwreck galaxy NGC 4753 appears to be unique, this may be the result of the angle at which astronomers view it from Earth. He added that if this peculiar lenticular galaxy was viewed from above, it would likely appear like any other spiral galaxy.
This means that the incredible and fascinating features may not be rare so to speak, but merely accessible to us thanks to our unique edge-on perspective from Eart
Space shuttle Endeavour soaring into place at final museum home
Rong-Gong Lin II
Sat, January 27, 2024
The space shuttle Endeavour is wrapped in protective shrink wrap and is parked next to its external fuel tanks as it awaits being lifted by a 450-foot crane and placed next to its fuel tanks next week at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Barring weather delays, the space shuttle Endeavour will undergo its final, historic lift starting Monday night, a maneuver no other retired orbiter has undergone.
Plans for the coming move — setting into place the crown jewel of the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center — have been in the works for more than a decade. First, a pair of cranes will hoist the shuttle from a horizontal position to a vertical one; the spacecraft will be attached to a sling, a large metal frame that'll support it during the move. An 11-story crane will lift the tail of Endeavour, while a 40-story crawler crane — about the height of City Hall — will lift the nose.
Once the shuttle is pointed toward the stars, the shorter crane will be disconnected, leaving the taller crane to gently swing the orbiter to its final position and lowering it to be affixed with the giant orange external tank. The external tank is attached to twin solid rocket boosters, which are connected to the exhibit's foundation.
Once complete — and the rest of the museum is constructed in the coming years — L.A. will be home to the only retired space shuttle displayed in a full-stack arrangement as if ready for launch.
A 2012 file photo shows the space shuttle Endeavor on L.A. streets en route to the California Science Center. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
There will be two parts to the move. The first — the so-called "soft mate" — is scheduled to begin around 10 p.m. Monday and could take hours.
"That's the part of lifting it into the building and getting it close to the orbiter," said Jeffrey Rudolph, president of the California Science Center.
The second part will be to "capture" Endeavour to the external tank.
"It is extremely sensitive to get it in exactly the right position," Rudolph said. "It puts all the attached hardware in the right place on the orbiter. And several of the pieces inside the orbiter that it attaches to are very fragile, so they will do this very slowly."
Once that is done, everything will still need to be tightened, Rudolph said, but the move will effectively be complete. It's believed that by Thursday, everything will be "hard mated, meaning everything will be torqued, bolted as it will be forever. And the sling will come off, and we'll say, 'Done,' " he said.
The schedule could change because of weather, as strong winds would force a postponement of the move.
Read more: Space shuttle Endeavour makes one more voyage to its final destination at a new space center
Nothing should change after that until the museum opens the payload bay doors in a few years when Endeavour is ready for public display, Rudolph said.
There are different challenges lifting the shuttle than the external tank, which was completed earlier this month. The tank is so large that, as it was lowered, there was less than an inch of space between it and the solid rocket boosters.
With the Endeavour orbiter — the last space shuttle ever built — crews will need to maneuver an object with a 78-foot wingspan and get "everything absolutely level and aligned properly, and extremely gently," Rudolph said.
"There are a few places where there's some challenging parts in the lowering of it because of the tight fit with the wings and vertical stabilizer," he said. "And then the challenge is actually bringing the orbiter — 'capturing it' — at the three attach points."
Because Endeavour is essentially a glider with a massive wingspan, it'll be difficult to guide it down if there are strong winds.
"Wind and wings don't go well on a crane," Rudolph said.
"This has never been done like this before, with cranes and outside and at a construction site," he said.
When the shuttle was stacked with its external tank and solid rocket boosters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the assembly was done inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building — one of the largest by volume in the world, rising more than 50 stories and equipped with plenty of cranes and platforms from which to work.
Read more: Mission accomplished: Space shuttle Endeavour's giant orange fuel tank moved into viewing spot in L.A.
Beginning Monday night, the space shuttle Endeavour will be lifted by a 450-foot crane and placed next to its fuel tanks. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
In Los Angeles, crews have had to painstakingly build up, take down and reformat scaffolding to enable them to make the proper connections.
There have been last-minute changes too. During the arrival of the external tank, there were times when the crew "had to scurry up and remove some scaffolding pieces and reconfigure it while we were doing the lowering," Rudolph said.
The main lift of the orbiter is likely to take one night. By contrast, the external tank lift took two nights. The first was delayed by winds, although crews were able to begin the lift before stopping work mid-morning. On the second night, the tank was able to be lowered further, in between the solid rocket boosters.
Officials hope to livestream the latest lift. A livestream for raising the external tank was scrapped because of technical difficulties, and officials are working to iron out those problems ahead of Monday's orbiter move.
Read more: A successful liftoff: Space shuttle Endeavour's rockets are installed
A veteran of 25 space trips from 1992 to 2011, Endeavour made its last flight in 2012, ending a cross-country journey at Los Angeles International Airport before undertaking a three-day trek along city streets to the California Science Center. For 11 years, Endeavour was displayed in a temporary hangar, the Samuel Oschin Pavilion, as the museum worked on a permanent home. Endeavour was taken off display Dec. 31.
The full-stack configuration is so tall that the new museum will rise 20 stories to make room for it.
To keep views unobstructed, the building has been engineered with no vertical supports except its walls. It will feature a a diagonal grid developed by engineering firm Arup and covered by a stainless-steel facade. Such "diagrids" have been used in other tall buildings, including the 46-story Hearst Tower in New York City, the iconic 40-story ovular Gherkin skyscraper in London and a section of the egg-shaped London City Hall.
Once the shuttle full stack is in place, the rest of the museum will be built around it. It could be a few years before it is open to the public, given the construction schedule and additional time needed to install exhibits.
Rong-Gong Lin II
Sat, January 27, 2024
The space shuttle Endeavour is wrapped in protective shrink wrap and is parked next to its external fuel tanks as it awaits being lifted by a 450-foot crane and placed next to its fuel tanks next week at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Barring weather delays, the space shuttle Endeavour will undergo its final, historic lift starting Monday night, a maneuver no other retired orbiter has undergone.
Plans for the coming move — setting into place the crown jewel of the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center — have been in the works for more than a decade. First, a pair of cranes will hoist the shuttle from a horizontal position to a vertical one; the spacecraft will be attached to a sling, a large metal frame that'll support it during the move. An 11-story crane will lift the tail of Endeavour, while a 40-story crawler crane — about the height of City Hall — will lift the nose.
Once the shuttle is pointed toward the stars, the shorter crane will be disconnected, leaving the taller crane to gently swing the orbiter to its final position and lowering it to be affixed with the giant orange external tank. The external tank is attached to twin solid rocket boosters, which are connected to the exhibit's foundation.
Once complete — and the rest of the museum is constructed in the coming years — L.A. will be home to the only retired space shuttle displayed in a full-stack arrangement as if ready for launch.
A 2012 file photo shows the space shuttle Endeavor on L.A. streets en route to the California Science Center. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
There will be two parts to the move. The first — the so-called "soft mate" — is scheduled to begin around 10 p.m. Monday and could take hours.
"That's the part of lifting it into the building and getting it close to the orbiter," said Jeffrey Rudolph, president of the California Science Center.
The second part will be to "capture" Endeavour to the external tank.
"It is extremely sensitive to get it in exactly the right position," Rudolph said. "It puts all the attached hardware in the right place on the orbiter. And several of the pieces inside the orbiter that it attaches to are very fragile, so they will do this very slowly."
Once that is done, everything will still need to be tightened, Rudolph said, but the move will effectively be complete. It's believed that by Thursday, everything will be "hard mated, meaning everything will be torqued, bolted as it will be forever. And the sling will come off, and we'll say, 'Done,' " he said.
The schedule could change because of weather, as strong winds would force a postponement of the move.
Read more: Space shuttle Endeavour makes one more voyage to its final destination at a new space center
Nothing should change after that until the museum opens the payload bay doors in a few years when Endeavour is ready for public display, Rudolph said.
There are different challenges lifting the shuttle than the external tank, which was completed earlier this month. The tank is so large that, as it was lowered, there was less than an inch of space between it and the solid rocket boosters.
With the Endeavour orbiter — the last space shuttle ever built — crews will need to maneuver an object with a 78-foot wingspan and get "everything absolutely level and aligned properly, and extremely gently," Rudolph said.
"There are a few places where there's some challenging parts in the lowering of it because of the tight fit with the wings and vertical stabilizer," he said. "And then the challenge is actually bringing the orbiter — 'capturing it' — at the three attach points."
Because Endeavour is essentially a glider with a massive wingspan, it'll be difficult to guide it down if there are strong winds.
"Wind and wings don't go well on a crane," Rudolph said.
"This has never been done like this before, with cranes and outside and at a construction site," he said.
When the shuttle was stacked with its external tank and solid rocket boosters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the assembly was done inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building — one of the largest by volume in the world, rising more than 50 stories and equipped with plenty of cranes and platforms from which to work.
Read more: Mission accomplished: Space shuttle Endeavour's giant orange fuel tank moved into viewing spot in L.A.
Beginning Monday night, the space shuttle Endeavour will be lifted by a 450-foot crane and placed next to its fuel tanks. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
In Los Angeles, crews have had to painstakingly build up, take down and reformat scaffolding to enable them to make the proper connections.
There have been last-minute changes too. During the arrival of the external tank, there were times when the crew "had to scurry up and remove some scaffolding pieces and reconfigure it while we were doing the lowering," Rudolph said.
The main lift of the orbiter is likely to take one night. By contrast, the external tank lift took two nights. The first was delayed by winds, although crews were able to begin the lift before stopping work mid-morning. On the second night, the tank was able to be lowered further, in between the solid rocket boosters.
Officials hope to livestream the latest lift. A livestream for raising the external tank was scrapped because of technical difficulties, and officials are working to iron out those problems ahead of Monday's orbiter move.
Read more: A successful liftoff: Space shuttle Endeavour's rockets are installed
A veteran of 25 space trips from 1992 to 2011, Endeavour made its last flight in 2012, ending a cross-country journey at Los Angeles International Airport before undertaking a three-day trek along city streets to the California Science Center. For 11 years, Endeavour was displayed in a temporary hangar, the Samuel Oschin Pavilion, as the museum worked on a permanent home. Endeavour was taken off display Dec. 31.
The full-stack configuration is so tall that the new museum will rise 20 stories to make room for it.
To keep views unobstructed, the building has been engineered with no vertical supports except its walls. It will feature a a diagonal grid developed by engineering firm Arup and covered by a stainless-steel facade. Such "diagrids" have been used in other tall buildings, including the 46-story Hearst Tower in New York City, the iconic 40-story ovular Gherkin skyscraper in London and a section of the egg-shaped London City Hall.
Once the shuttle full stack is in place, the rest of the museum will be built around it. It could be a few years before it is open to the public, given the construction schedule and additional time needed to install exhibits.
NASA orbiter spies Japan's struggling SLIM moon lander on lunar surface (photo)
Brett Tingley
Fri, January 26, 2024
A small white dot on the surface of the moon.
A NASA orbiter caught sight of Japan's SLIM moon lander on the lunar surface after its historic touchdown.
SLIM, or the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, is operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It touched down on the moon in a precision landing on Jan. 19, making Japan the fifth country to make a soft landing on the lunar surface behind India, China, the United States and Russia (then the Soviet Union).
From its orbit 50 miles (80 km) above the moon's surface, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was able to see SLIM resting at its landing site. "Bright streaks on the left side of the image are rocky material ejected from the nearby, relatively young Shioli crater," NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which manages LRO, wrote in a statement.
Related: Japan's SLIM moon lander photographed on the lunar surface — on its nose (image)
NASA's images show SLIM's landing site both before and after the probe's touchdown. One of the images, seen below, is a composite that removes features that are the same in both the before-landing and after-landing images. In turn, it allows us to see changes in reflectance on the lunar surface, caused by the lander's engine exhaust, to stand out.
the grey surface of the moon with a white circle indicating where a lunar lander's engine blew away dust
SLIM accomplished its main goal of landing at a chosen site with near-pinpoint accuracy, touching down within 328 feet (100 meters) of its target despite ending up upside down due to an engine failure during descent.
an animation showing the grey surface of the moon before and after a small speck appears
Because of its orientation, SLIM is unable to use its solar panels to generate electricity, meaning the probe is relying fully on its battery. On Monday (Jan. 21), the lander's battery dipped to 12% capacity, triggering a power down "to avoid being unable to restart for a recovery operation due to over-discharge," SLIM team members stated on X.
SLIM as seen by LEV-2 on the moon after landing on its nose
— 'We proved that you can land wherever you want.' Japan's SLIM moon probe nailed precise lunar landing, JAXA says
— Why Chandrayaan-3 landed near the moon's south pole — and why everyone else wants to get there too
— Not dead yet: Japan prepares for possible recovery of SLIM moon lander
Nevertheless, JAXA scientists are hopeful that, if sunlight shines on the lander from the lunar west, SLIM's solar panels might be able to absorb enough sunshine to generate power and recover.
It's not all bad news, though. In addition to sticking its landing, SLIM was able to deploy two mini-rovers it carried to the moon, called EV-1 ("Lunar Excursion Vehicle" 1) and LEV-2. Both are operating as planned, and the ball-like LEV-2 was even able to snap a picture of its upside-down host.
Brett Tingley
Fri, January 26, 2024
A small white dot on the surface of the moon.
A NASA orbiter caught sight of Japan's SLIM moon lander on the lunar surface after its historic touchdown.
SLIM, or the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, is operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It touched down on the moon in a precision landing on Jan. 19, making Japan the fifth country to make a soft landing on the lunar surface behind India, China, the United States and Russia (then the Soviet Union).
From its orbit 50 miles (80 km) above the moon's surface, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was able to see SLIM resting at its landing site. "Bright streaks on the left side of the image are rocky material ejected from the nearby, relatively young Shioli crater," NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which manages LRO, wrote in a statement.
Related: Japan's SLIM moon lander photographed on the lunar surface — on its nose (image)
NASA's images show SLIM's landing site both before and after the probe's touchdown. One of the images, seen below, is a composite that removes features that are the same in both the before-landing and after-landing images. In turn, it allows us to see changes in reflectance on the lunar surface, caused by the lander's engine exhaust, to stand out.
the grey surface of the moon with a white circle indicating where a lunar lander's engine blew away dust
SLIM accomplished its main goal of landing at a chosen site with near-pinpoint accuracy, touching down within 328 feet (100 meters) of its target despite ending up upside down due to an engine failure during descent.
an animation showing the grey surface of the moon before and after a small speck appears
Because of its orientation, SLIM is unable to use its solar panels to generate electricity, meaning the probe is relying fully on its battery. On Monday (Jan. 21), the lander's battery dipped to 12% capacity, triggering a power down "to avoid being unable to restart for a recovery operation due to over-discharge," SLIM team members stated on X.
SLIM as seen by LEV-2 on the moon after landing on its nose
— 'We proved that you can land wherever you want.' Japan's SLIM moon probe nailed precise lunar landing, JAXA says
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— Not dead yet: Japan prepares for possible recovery of SLIM moon lander
Nevertheless, JAXA scientists are hopeful that, if sunlight shines on the lander from the lunar west, SLIM's solar panels might be able to absorb enough sunshine to generate power and recover.
It's not all bad news, though. In addition to sticking its landing, SLIM was able to deploy two mini-rovers it carried to the moon, called EV-1 ("Lunar Excursion Vehicle" 1) and LEV-2. Both are operating as planned, and the ball-like LEV-2 was even able to snap a picture of its upside-down host.
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