Space Models, Space Systems

ESA ATV scale model kit + ATV launch today

The French firm Heller is offering a kit of the European ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) spacecraft, which delivers cargo to the International Space Station: MISSION JULES VERNE – Heller (Google Translation to English).

The next ATV mission is scheduled to blast off today at 2152:11 GMT (5:52:11 p.m. EDT) on an Ariane 5 rocket from the ESA spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana :

Updates and video of the launch can be found at ATV Mission Report | Mission Status Center – Spaceflight Now

Mission Jules Verne - ATV
Satellite Watching, Space participation

Imaging the Bion-M1 spacecraft while it was in space

Astrophotographer  writes about imaging the Russian Bion-M1 satellite during its recent flight:  Ground-based Images of Bion-M1 Spacecraft – Space Safety Magazine – June.5.13.

He captured an image of the spacecraft with “surprising resolution [at]  a range of 581 kilometers and an altitude of 575 kilometers”.

Astronomy

Our solar system is not in the galactic outback after all

An improved view of our section of the galaxy indicates the solar system is in a major arm of the Milky Way after all: Our Solar System’s Milky Way neighborhood just went upscale – Susquehanna Astronomical Society.

Solar Science, Space Systems

IRIS spacecraft, set to launch June 26th, to study the solar wind

This video shows a NASA news briefing about a new solar wind research spacecraft, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), which will launch this month:

NASA hosts a news update about the June 26 launch of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer Mission to observe how solar material moves in a dynamic million-degree atmosphere that drives the solar wind around the Sun’s atmosphere. The region is the origin of most of the ultraviolet solar emission that impacts the near-Earth space environment and Earth’s climate.

Rockets, Solar Sci-Fi, Space books

The Rocket Company: Chapters 7-10

In the continuing serialization of the updated version of the book The Rocket Company by Patrick J. G. Stiennon and David M. Hoerr, with illustrations by Doug Birkholz.  This week you can obtain the following chapters of the book:

Download these within the next week. Only four chapters will be available at any one time.

See also the electronic version of the updated book is available at  The Rocket Company eBook by Patrick Stiennon, David Hoerr, Peter Diamandis, Doug Birkhol: Kindle Store/Amazon.com.

Everyone can participate in space