In the final minutes of a recent close flyby of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured a departing view of the planet’s swirling southern hemisphere. This color-enhanced image was taken at 7:13 p.m. PDT on Sept. 6, 2018 (10:13 p.m. EDT) as the spacecraft performed its 15th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was about 55,600 miles (89,500 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops, above a southern latitude of approximately 75 degrees. Citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt created this image using data from the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt
Early on September 07, 2018, UTC, NASA’s Juno probe successfully performed her Perijove-15 Jupiter flyby. Like during most of the recent Jupiter flybys, good contact to Earth and incremented storage allowed taking close-up images of good quality.
The movie is a reconstruction of the 112 minutes between 2018-09-07T00:30:00.000 and 2018-09-07T02:22:00.000 in 125-fold time-lapse. It is based on 25 of the JunoCam images taken, and on spacecraft trajectory data provided via SPICE kernel files.
In steps of five real-time seconds, one still images of the movie has been rendered from at least one suitable raw image. This resulted in short scenes, usually of a few seconds. Playing with 25 images per second results in 125-fold time-lapse.
This month marks 61 years since the launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. Here are three documentaries (of increasing length) about Sputnik and the opening of the Space Age:
Small satellites, which typically refers to spacecraft in the kilogram to a few hundred kilograms range, have become in the past few years a large and growing part of what is happening in space. Smallsats have actually been around since the start of the Space Age. Just a few years after Sputnik reached orbit, the first amateur satellite reached orbit as well. (See A Brief History of AMSAT.) Note that “amateur” here refers primarily to the involvement of the amateur radio community and the use of amateur radio bands for communications with the satellites.
For decades, smallsats remained a niche activity carried out mostly by AMSAT and university student teams. Now companies like Planet and Spire operate hundreds of satellites in orbit for commercial purposes and constellations with thousands of satellites are set to be deployed during the coming years.
After referring to the 84 kg Sputnik, launched in 1957 as a “small satellite,” Dr. Patterson discusses the three keys to the growth of the small sat industry: affordability, responsiveness and shorter development cycles. And because the barrier to entry is so much lower for small satellites, more and more small companies begin to come online bringing a lot more competition, which brings a lot more good ideas to the table.
Astronaut Drew Feustel gives an excellent performance in this music video recorded on the International Space Station with gorgeous views of the earth passing below:
NASA astronaut Drew Feustel recorded this music video from space. Feustel launched to the International Space Station in March 2018 and is currently serving as Expedition 56 Commander. Drew thanks all who helped bring this to life, including his friend, Gord Sinclair, for giving him permission to use the song, and the crew of Expeditions 55 and 56 for their support and participation in NASA’s human space exploration mission.
Here is a Chris Hadfield’s famous rendition of Space Oddity on the ISS:
Hadfield also performed the song I.S.S. simultaneously with Barenaked Ladies and a choir back on earth:
A mostly SpaceX episode as the ambitious company provides updated details regarding its huge new rocket and introduces its first astronauts. Mat Kaplan shares more from the company’s headquarters, while Planetary Society Digital Editor explains and explores the BFR. Jason also celebrates the successful landing of two asteroid “rovers” from Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft. And we’ll tell you What’s Up in the night sky as we offer another space trivia contest.
** The Space Show | 02 Oct 2018 – Dr. Christopher Morrison talked about “new ideas for space nuclear power, new approaches and fuels being developed by his company, UltraSafe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) and multiple related nuclear space topics“.
** The Space Show | 01 Oct 2018 – Bjarke Gotfredsen from Cape Town, South Africa discussed “STEM in South Africa, global STEM learning with technology tools, astrobiology partnerships with the Carl Sagan Center at SETI, searching for Mars life via the Andes and much more“.
As we learned from our podcasts at the Small Satellite Conference in Utah this August, the small sat industry is simultaneously growing in so many directions…from new streamlined manufacturing techniques, to more launch options, a plethora of emerging applications and, of course the economic outlook for the industry Who better to discuss these issues than Carolyn Belle, Senior Analyst at NSR, who built their Small Satellite practice. Listen as Carolyn discusses the potential impact of SpaceX, One Web and other planned mega constellations on the GEO operators; the impact of new small sat propulsion systems and the emergence of in-orbit services including satellite refueling, life extension and salvage. Carolyn also addresses the hype that has surrounded the industry but believes that we’re only starting to scratch the surface of the value they might deliver moving forward.
