Archive
Ephemeris: 06/22/2026 – Will SpaceX and Blue Origin be ready for Artemis 3?
This is Ephemeris for Monday, June 22nd. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:32, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:57. The Moon, 1 day past first quarter, will set at 1:53 tomorrow morning.
NASA and it’s partners SpaceX and Blue Origin are having problems on their way back to the Moon. On April 28th, Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket blew up doing a static firing of its engines, destroying the rocket and severely damaging the launch pad, the only one they had. History has shown that launch pads take a year or more to rebuild. The New Glen Rocket is to launch their moon lander. SpaceX had a partially successful flight of their Starship, but had loss of engines, and didn’t perform an in space relight of a starship engine, to prove they could deorbit it. These two companies are suppliers of the lunar landers, prototypes of which must be ready next year for the Artemis 3 mission and a real lander must be ready in 2028 to stay on schedule.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 05/28/2026 – NASA’s first Moon program
This is Ephemeris for Thursday, May 28th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 15 minutes, setting at 9:17, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:02. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 4:32 tomorrow morning.
The United States first lunar mission to the moon was the Ranger Program of moon impactors, to televise pictures all the way to impact to see what the moon looked like up close and personal, so to speak. The program actually started before President Kennedy announced plans to send humans to the moon, although the first launch was made several months after that announcement. The program consisted of nine launches of three different variations of the spacecraft. The first two launches failed Then in the next four launches, the spacecraft either missed the moon or were dead on arrival. However, the last three were successful, showing that the moon was indeed mostly smooth enough to land a spacecraft.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 05/26/2026 – The Soviet Union’s Luna 3 provided first look at the far side of the Moon
This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Tuesday, May 26th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 11 minutes, setting at 9:16, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:03. The Moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 3:48 tomorrow morning.
The space race with the Soviet Union started with the launch of Sputnik one in October 1957. The Soviets won the early milestones of the race, including less than two years after Sputnik 1, a flyby of Luna 3 around the moon, and taking the first photographs of the far side. Back then before CCDs, the best quality images from space were photographed onto film and then developed, then scanned on the satellite and the data is sent down to the earth. The images were rather crude and grainy. I was a senior in high school at the time and as interested in astronomy as I am today. We thought that the Far Side of the moon would be more of the same. The Far Side was completely different.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 04/30/2026 – GTAS meeting tomorrow, The Space Race.
This is Ephemeris for Thursday, April 30th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 12 minutes, setting at 8:46, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:32. The Moon, 1 day before full, will set at 6:03 tomorrow morning.
The Grand Traverse Astronomical Society will host its May meeting tomorrow, May 1st at 9 PM at Northwestern Michigan College’s Joseph H Rogers Observatory. The later meeting time through July allows us to have viewing after the meeting start in darker skies. The program is a video called the Space Race. I’m not sure if it was the one 6 decades ago in the 1960s or the current one, which is in doubt. It will be informative either way. Afterward, about 10 PM if it’s clear, there will be viewing of the heavens through the observatory’s telescopes, featuring Jupiter, its cloud bands and moons. The observatory is located on Birmley Rd. South of Traverse City. Also, available on ZOOM, see gtastro.org.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 01/23/2026 – The new space race
This is Ephemeris for Friday, January 23rd. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 28 minutes, setting at 5:39, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:09. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 11:17 this evening.
In the 1960s The United States and the Soviet Union engaged into what was called the space race. A race that was essentially to be the first nation to set foot on the Moon. It was a race the United States won when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon on July 20th 1969. We are now engaged in another space race, this time with China. It looks like Russia is sitting this one out, or are helping the Chinese, though it looks like the Chinese are out innovating them with their own reusable rockets. The stakes are higher this time. There is a place on the Moon in which everyone is interested. That being the Moon’s South Pole which has water in the form of ice in permanently shadowed craters, which would be worth its weight in gold.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EST, UT – 5 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 06/18/2024 – Are we in a space race with China?
This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, June 18th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 9:31, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:56. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 3:41 tomorrow morning.
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s The United States and Russia were in a space race, attempting to outdo each other in space. The Russians had the lead to begin with. Their rockets were bigger because they were unable to miniaturize their atomic weapons. So they needed rockets large enough to launch them, and had rockets large enough, off the shelf so to speak, to be able to launch satellites and even humans into orbit. Sixty years later the old Soviet Union has disappeared and Russia is still using rocket technology that was developed in the 1960s. The Chinese however, were nowhere in the 1960s, and have now ascended to be our number one competitor in space. Considering their latest progress, China may beat us back to the Moon.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
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