Space Update
Between being sick and being really busy with work, I haven’t been keeping up with the latest in space news. Well it turns out there have been a number of interesting things happening, so here it is, your 2006 Space News Roundup:
New Horizons The first planetary mission to an unvisited planet in more than 20 years. The first mission to Pluto, the only planet to have not yet been visited by a probe. The first mission specifically sent to research the third region of our solar system, the Kupier belt. It successfully lifted off on the 19th of January, early enough in its launch window to catch Jupiter for a slingshot to Pluto, taking about 6 years off the journey. Personally I think this is the most exciting thing they have done since Cassini entered Saturn’s orbit.
Stardust Comet sample return mission worked! That is good luck, the last sample return mission slammed into the ground. This will provide all sorts of interesting data, and they won’t need to sift through rubble to get it.
Space Station Nasa just unveiled a new station assembly plan. It looks like they think they can finish it up before the 2010 shuttle retirement deadline that was handed down. There are still 16 shuttle flights required, so that will be a little tight, if they do two this year, then they will still need more than four a year for the remaining three years to meet the deadline. On the plus side, they are still thinking of giving it a 6 person capacity. Of course without the shuttle, it doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense. I guess retrofit the second docking node to hold another Soyuez?
And in surface physics, ice isn’t slippery because we melt it and put water on top, it is slippery because the surface layers have unique vibrational properties.