Wednesday, December 30, 2020

The Ashes of Star Trek’s James Doohan Have Secretly Been Orbiting the Earth for 12 Years | Twin

Official requests to send his ashes to the ISS were initially denied, which is why Garriot, along with the blessing of Doohan’s family, decided to do it himself. He hid the ashes, along with a laminated photo of Doohan, under the floor of the space station’s Columbus module. Since then, according to the Times , Doohan’s ashes have circled the Earth more 70,000 times.

A recent view over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile from the International Space Station. NASA

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Publisher: Twin Cities Geek - MN Geek Culture Magazine
Date: 2020-12-29T17:30:13-06:00
Author: Joe Praska
Twitter: @@TwinCitiesGeeks
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In case you are keeping track:

Two payloads orbited by SpaceX’s launch of NRO mission – Spaceflight Now

Tracking information released by the U.S. military indicates two government payloads rode a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Dec. 19 on the NROL-108 mission, a dedicated launch for the National Reconnaissance Office.

The identities and purposes of the satellites remain top secret, but both spacecraft are presumably owned by the NRO, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

The two spacecraft — publicly designated USA 312 and USA 313 — have been catalogued by the Space Force unit charged with tracking all satellites and space debris orbiting Earth.

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Mystery object orbiting Earth is 54-year-old rocket, not asteroid, NASA confirms

This 1964 photograph shows a Centaur upper-stage rocket before being mated to an Atlas booster. A similar Centaur was used during the launch of Surveyor 2 two years later. Credits: NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday.

Observations by a telescope in Hawaii clinched its identity, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Publisher: FOX 13 Tampa Bay
Date: 2020-12-03
Twitter: @FOX13news
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Spacecraft Movement Control Specialist Suggests How to Clean Up Space Debris

A specialist in spacecraft movement control analyzed the process of placing vehicle stages, boosters, and other space debris into the so-called disposal orbit and suggested cleaning lower orbits up with a spacecraft that has modules with engine units on board. These modules will attach to space debris objects and move them away. As for the geostationary orbit, a preferable way to clean it up would be a towing spacecraft that transports space debris objects into the disposal orbit.

Besides satellites and the International Space Station, thousands of out-of-service spacecraft, boosters, and other space debris objects move along different orbits around the Earth. Sometimes they collide and break down: for example, over 1,000 new observable fragments appeared in 2018 when eight objects fell to pieces in the near-Earth space. The more debris is left in space, the higher is the risk that it would damage the satellites, leaving us without communication and surveillance

Publisher: SciTechDaily
Date: 2020-12-29T18:18:50-08:00
Author: Mike O
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In case you are keeping track:

Those Space Force Uniforms Orbiting Social Media Are Bogus, US Military Says

A mock-up drawing of Space Force uniforms that began orbiting social media on Tuesday has been debunked.

A U.S. military spokesperson informed military.com that the uniform designs did not come from the actual U.S. Space Force, a new branch of the military founded during the Trump administration in 2019.

“The uniform graphic being shared on social media is not an official U.S. Space Force uniform design concept,” Maj. Nick Mercurio said Tuesday. “The Space Force service dress uniform is still in development.”

Publisher: TheWrap
Date: 2020-12-29T20:53:58 00:00
Author: Margeaux Sippell
Twitter: @thewrap
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SpaceX's very big year: A 2020 filled with astronaut launches, Starship tests and more | Space

Elon Musk's company launched 26 missions in 2020, breaking its previous calendar-year record of 21, which was set in 2018. This year's launches included SpaceX's 100th successful space mission overall, as well as the 100th of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket .

But the raw numbers tell only a tiny portion of the story. For example, two of SpaceX's launches this year sent astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules — the first orbital crewed missions to lift off from the United States since NASA grounded its space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Publisher: Space.com
Date: 2020-12-28T13:07:59 00:00
Author: https www facebook com spacecom
Twitter: @SPACEdotcom
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What would Earth look like to alien astronomers? | Astronomy.com

Ever since 1992, when astronomers first discovered two rocky planets orbiting a pulsar in the constellation Virgo, humans have known that other worlds exist beyond our solar system. Today, thanks to the efforts of astronomers and ambitious missions like the now-retired Kepler , we know of more than 4,000 confirmed exoplanets.

That's a speculative scenario, of course, but it's one astronomers still take seriously. In multiple papers over the years, they've identified which exoplanets would be able to spot Earth. And now, with updated information from the European Space Agency's expansive Gaia catalog of nearby stars, two researchers have provided us with perhaps the best list yet of which alien worlds could have their eyes on us.

Publisher: Astronomy.com
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Japanese pairing looking into using wood to build satellites

The major benefit of wood-based satellites is they would burn up completely when returning to Earth. But another major bonus of using wood to create the outer shell of a satellite is that electromagnetic waves would pass right through it, which means antennas could be placed inside of satellite structures, making them simpler to design and deploy.

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