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12/26/2014 – Ephemeris – Tragedies and triumphs of 2014
Ephemeris for Friday, December 26th. The sun will rise at 8:18. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 5:08. The moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 11:02 this evening.
2014 was a year of personal tragedy and also tragedy and triumph in space. The Space tragedies came in October with the destruction and loss of Orbital Science’s third supply mission to the International Space Station when the their Antares rocket blew up right after launch. A few days later Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo disintegrated on a test flight killing a pilot. In the Triumph department the European Space Agency’s Rosetta caught up and orbited its comet 67P, for short, in August and bounced down its lander Philae in November. It wasn’t supposed to bounce, but stick the landing. Bruised and battered Philae delivered its science before its batteries died. And this month an unmanned Orion capsule made its maiden voyage into space.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes seconds after liftoff on October 28, 2014. Credit NASA.
SpaceShipTwo disintegrates October 31, 2014 killing a pilot. Credit USA Today.
After a second bounce on the Comet 67P the Philae lander ended up sideways apparently on the base of a cliff. Researchers were able to get data from just about all the instruments before the battery discharged. The team hopes and the comet gets closer to the sun and the sun angle changes they can revive Philae. Credit: ESA.
Screen capture of Delta IV Heavy rocket liftoff carrying the Orion test article into orbit on December 4, 2014. Credit .NASA via BBC
Ride back to the earth with Orion via a camera mounted in a window. The window is facing aft as the capsule re-enters the atmosphere heat shield first at 20,000 miles per hour. You’ll experience everything except the G forces. It comes with appropriate spacey music. It’s as close as I’ll ever get to ride in one of these things.
Philae will attempt to land on comet 67P C-G today (updated)
Today’s the big event when the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft will release Philae the lander to land on the head of the rubber ducky shaped comet.
Go to the Rosetta landing mission site for links to the live stream feed and other blog and Twitter links.
The times given are CET (Central European Time) and GMT (Greenwich Mean Time or Universal time) Subtract 5 hours for Eastern Standard Time. I’ll convert them below.
Final Go/NoGo decision will be between 1:35 and 2:35 a.m. EST. As of the time of this posting that’s an hour and a half from now.
The release of Philae will be at 4:03 a.m. EST
Landing of Philae will occur around 11:02 a.m. EST. The Philae lander will fall over 7 hours to the comet.
Updated 8:46 EST: Philae has been released. Live update expected at 9 a.m.
Below is a link to the live feed from the Rosetta operations center
Also follow on Twitter #CometLanding
Update 11:05 a.m. EST: The Philae has landed! From the happy faces and celebration in he control center. No announcement yet.
Update 11:08 a.m. EST: The official announcement came from the flight director. The harpoons were fired and cables reeled back to attach the lander to the surface.
Update 11:48 a.m. EST: It is reported that Philae may not be anchored to the surface Stay tuned.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 