Month: July 2015

  • And now we wait #PlutoFlyby

    New Horizons has completed its closest approach to Pluto with a historic flyby at 7:50am EDT today, however we will not hear back from the spacecraft for another 12 hours as it will now turn around and continue observations as it moves away from the system, this time with our Sun in the background. The…

  • T-1 days until #PlutoFlyby

    By this time tomorrow NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will be zooming past the Dwarf Plant Pluto capturing details of the planet from just 12,500 km (7,800 mi) away closer than any spacecraft has ever been. The spacecraft is now deep in the encounter mode of operation, this means that if anything goes wrong it will…

  • T-7 days and counting to New Horizons Pluto Flyby

    NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is just 7 days away from its closest approach to Pluto, and this week we are going to look at the amazing images that have already been returned.  As the spacecraft gets closer and closer we are going to learn much more about the Planet and its moons. Before we take…

  • New Horizons Suffers Safe-Mode event

    Just 10 days before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto it suffered a Safe-Mode event on Saturday causing a lost of communications when the spacecraft handled the event and switched to its backup computer system. Thankfully the backup system took over and re-established communications and begun sending data back to Mission Control to allow them…

  • ISS Resupply Vehicle Launches successfully

    Following on from two recent failures the Progress 60P (M-28M) spacecraft lifted off successfully this morning, Lifted to orbit aboard a Soyuz-U rocket the automated spacecraft successfully deployed its Solar Arrays and Kurs docking antennas before firing its thrusters to begin the journey to the ISS, for this flight the spacecraft will use the two…

  • ISS and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

    It does seem like the International Space Station is having quite a bad time with re-supply at the moment, three missions have been lost since last October. However things are not really as bad as the title suggests. Tomorrow morning another re-supply vehicle is scheduled to liftoff from Baikonur, the Russian Progress 60P spacecraft. This…

  • Buzz Aldrin

    Today I had the opportunity to meet with Astronaut Buzz Aldrin as part of my role with The Mars Foundation. Buzz is truly a unique character during out time together he had to do a phone interview with a South Dakota radio station which was interesting to listen to.  He discussed many of his ideas…