This week I've been thinking about space things, and how these are interesting times indeed for space exploration and technology. In addition to robot probes beaming back never before seen sights from unexplored corners of the solar system, advances in rocket technology promise to make it cheaper (and cooler) to launch satellites and spacecraft from Earth.
In August 2014 Rosetta became the first spacecraft to orbit a comet. Since then we have been treated to astounding photos of the comet's truly alien landscape.
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| The cliffs of comet 67P Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 |
This year we will be getting close up images of two more mysterious rocks, the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto, both of which were previously only glimpsed in blurry images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Dawn probe has already returned the best images yet of Ceres. and will arrive on March 6 2015, where it will become the first spacecraft to study a dwarf planet at close range. We may finally figure out what that white dot is for!
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| Dawn approaches the dwarf planet Ceres.Credit: NASA / JPL / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / Emily Lakdawalla |
Four months later New Horizons will perform the first flyby of ex-planet Pluto, finally revealing the secrets of this mysterious ball of ice and rock.
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| Currently our best map of dwarf planet Pluto Credit: Aineias, NASA, ESA, and M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute) |
Meanwhile, back on Earth, SpaceX are revolutionising launch technology. This is a particularly interesting time to follow SpaceX's progress, as with every launch they gradually perfect the techniques to recover the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage -- The giant lower portion of the rocket which usually crashes back down to Earth once its job of lifting the rest of the rocket is complete.
The way that they plan to recover the lower stage is straight out of science fiction: landing vertically under computer controlled rocket power. The eventual goal is to return the rocket to it's launch pad, but the interim goal involves landing on a floating drone platform in the ocean.
The great benefit of recovering the first rocket stage is that it can then be reused for only the cost of the refurbishment and refuelling. SpaceX anticipate that this could reduce the cost of launching into space by a hundredfold.
The above video show their latest (and closest) attempt yet. A shortage of hydraulic fluid for the aerodynamic fins brought about RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly) at the last moment. With two launches scheduled for February 2015, a successful recovery could be only weeks away.
This generation may not have our own Apollo mission to follow (yet), but there is more than enough amazing stuff going on to keep me interested.
I love reading about everything space. It's such an interesting topic due to all of the mysteries. There is just so much we do not know about space, so it's something that can keep you interested for life. Considering planet Earth alone is this great (and almost all of us have never branched out!), it's interesting to think about just how amazing other planets and life form must be out in space
ReplyDeleteI'm almost certain that you would have very recently seen the highly-detailed ultra high-definition photos released by NASA,which show the Andromeda galaxy.It required 4.3GB of storage space to save these images.Awe-inspiring stuff,it definitely makes me feel insignificant and very much not alone in this universe.So thank god(if there is a god,if aliens are proven then god is a question mark)for space travel and the ever changing technology to get us there.Here is a link: http://9gag.tv/p/a9Oa0A/nasa-andromeda-galaxy
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