Space

According to Astrobotic’s post-mission report:

After an extensive review of the events before, during, and after Peregrine’s mission, the board concluded that the most likely cause of Peregrine’s anomaly was the failure of a singular helium pressure control valve, called PCV2, within the propulsion system.

Boeing’s first crewed Starliner launch got Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore to the International Space Station in June, but with issues including helium leaks, will the same vehicle still bring them home?

We expect to find out during NASA’s press conference that was scheduled to start at 1PM ET following an Agency Test Flight Readiness Review.

Will astronauts  Barry ”Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams come home from the ISS on the Starliner, or will they wait to hitch a ride home from SpaceX next year without protective space suits?

We may find out on Saturday:

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and leadership will hold an internal Agency Test Flight Readiness Review on Saturday, Aug. 24, for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. About an hour later, NASA will host a live news conference at 1 p.m. EDT from Johnson Space Center in Houston.

In the meantime, NASA officials said on a media call that they will weigh the risks of bringing Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

The spacesuits they brought wouldn’t work, so they’d have to return without the protection of wearing one. Staying in space longer, however, could expose the astronauts to extra radiation.

The breakup of a Chinese Long March 6A rocket resulted in “over 300 pieces of trackable debris in low-Earth orbit,” according to US Space Command. The agency has “observed no immediate threats” as a result of the breakup.

Space.com has a good story about the situation.

The state-backed Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite Technology Company successfully launched 18 satellites on Tuesday, with goals of bringing 648 satellites into orbit by the end of 2025, according to the South China Morning Post.

The company, which aims to operate 14,000 satellites by 2030, still has ways to go to catch up to Starlink’s growing constellation of more than 6,000 satellites.

The Biden administration is investing $20 million in a program to use the GOES-R satellite for wildfire detection. The hope is that the satellite will spot blazes before 911 calls start, and see through a haze of smoke to point to where a fire ignited. That could help officials and firefighters respond more quickly and give them a leg up on fighting the fire.

Scientists realized they’d found a field of pure sulfur stones after the Curiosity rover accidentally crushed one of them, exposing the crystals, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote this week.

The rover then collected samples to try to explain them, as elemental sulfur “shouldn’t be there,” according to one of the project’s scientists.

The company that specializes in mobile 12V conversions of SpaceX’s internet-from-space kits has just released its first mount for Starlink’s smallest dish yet. Despite its size, Mini even integrates the Wi-Fi router (usually a separate box) into the laptop-sized package.

$249 gets you a versatile mount with shock absorption for your RV, boat, or overlanding rig.

After people in NYC reported a large boom at around 11:17AM that some attributed to military weapons tests, NASA Meteor Watch reports it was actually a meteor. With more reports collected from eyewitnesses, its latest update says the space rock's path took it west over New Jersey at 38,000 miles per hour.

Musk, who has been a resident of Texas since 2019, says he decided to move the companies because Gavin Newsom didn’t do what Musk told him to. Previously, Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin after local health officials closed the Fremont plant during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic; Musk has a history of political donations in Texas.

The Ariane 6 vehicle was supposed to begin service in 2020, but then... some things happened.

At about 3PM ET, it finally took off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana and successfully reignited its Vinci engine in orbit, beginning the journey’s second of three planned stages that you can continue to follow live.

Their simulated mission to Mars tested “how future astronauts may react to isolation and confinement during deep-space journeys,” according to NASA. The crew of four went through 18 health studies during their stint at a 650-square-foot habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Outside of each other’s company, the crew kept four pet triops shrimp: Buzz, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. 

The contract granted by NASA — worth up to $843 million — will see SpaceX develop a vehicle to safely deorbit the space station “in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030.”

NASA says the station will remain in use until then, and expects both the station and deorbit vehicle to break apart upon re-entry to avoid risk to populated areas.

The GOES-U satellite launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday.

It’s one of four National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites equipped with powerful new tools to monitor weather in space and on Earth. They’ll provide advanced imagery to inform forecasts, map lightning activity in real time, and detect solar flares.

Closing a loop that began with this 2016 launch, NASA is about to send the fourth and final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) – R Series into space as part of a system for much better real-time weather forecasting.