Archive
01/11/11 – Ephemeris – Stardust spacecraft flyby of Comet Tempel 1 in 34 days
Tuesday, January 11th. The sun will rise at 8:17. It’ll be up for 9 hours and 5 minutes, setting at 5:23. The moon, 1 day before first quarter, will set at 1:08 tomorrow morning.
The Stardust spacecraft is 34 days from its flyby of the comet Tempel 1 on Valentine’s day. This is the comet visited and impacted by the spacecraft Deep Impact five and a half years ago, on the 4th of July 2005. The purpose of this flyby is to study the impact crater created by Deep Impact, and the changes in the comet’s nucleus since the last encounter. Comet’s undergo wear and tear as they approach the sun sublimating their ices and liberating dust that forms their head and tail. The Stardust spacecraft is having some problems. It hasn’t imaged the comet for fine guidance yet, and apparently it has less maneuvering fuel than initially thought. In order to image the impact crater the rotation period of the comet must be known to a great precision. I’m not sure they do.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
12/31/10 – Ephemeris – Space exploration events in 2011
New Years Eve, Friday, December 31st. The sun will rise at 8:19. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 52 minutes, setting at 5:11. The moon, 1 day before new, will rise at 5:54 tomorrow morning.
The year 2011 will be a great one for exploration of the solar system. Three NASA spacecraft will reach their targets. On Valentine’s Day the Stardust spacecraft will pass close to Comet Tempel 1, to see the changes in that comet in the 5 and a half years since the Deep Impact spacecraft hit that comet with a 600 pound chunk of copper. On March 18th, the MESSENGER spacecraft will attempt to enter orbit around Mercury after a seven year long journey. On July 16th the ion powered Dawn spacecraft will gently assume orbit of the asteroid Vesta. Vesta is one of the bigger asteroids, being second most massive and the brightest. It will orbit Vesta for a year before leaving for the dwarf planet Ceres.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
SpaceX does it again!
Today SpaceX made their second successful launch out of two attempts of their Falcon 9 rocket. They put their Dragon capsule in orbit, and returned it to land on target in the Pacific Ocean. As always Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society has the information. This is fantastic news.
While just about all NASA rockets are built by private companies, they are built to NASA specifications in cost plus bids, which often have cost overruns. The plus in cost plus means the contractors are guaranteed profits. The new commercial firms design and build their own systems based on the general requirements provided by NASA. Whatever they come up with must of course be certified by NASA. NASA’s also paying, but it’s a fixed amount, so the companies can make out like a bandit, or lose their shirt.
Congratulations SpaceX!
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 